Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus., also waddie, whaddie) a club or cudgel; quote 1907 refers to a form of multi-lashed whip.

1814		M. Flinders Voyage ii 189: Some resembling the whaddie, or wooden sword of the natives of Port Jackson.
1827		P. Cunningham New South Wales II 20: It is amusing to see the consequential swagger of some of these dingy dandies, as they pass lordly up our streets, with a waddie twirling in their black paws. [Ibid.] 22: Their common practice of fighting amongst themselves is steal with the waddie, each alternately stooping the head to receive the other’s blows.
1830		R. Dawson Present State of Aus. 66: Such a weapon as their waddy is it is formed like a large kitchen poker, and nearly as heavy, only much shorter in the handle. The iron-bark wood, of which it is made, is very hard, and nearly as heavy as iron.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 25 Feb. 2/4: Constables know how to handle their waddies.
1844		C. Meredith Notes and Sketches of New South Wales 106: The word ‘waddie,’ [...] commonly applied to the weapons of the New South Wales aborigines.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes I 220: The waddy is a heavy, knobbed club, about two feet long.
1864		‘The Bulla Bulla Bunyip’ in Once a Week 31 Dec. 45: The landlord swore to apparition of a huge blackfellow flourishing a phantasmal ‘waddy.’.
1874		J.B. Stephens ‘The Headless Trooper’ Poems 103: Now pick a thickish waddy up / And plug my wound behind.
1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Oct. 12/4: [The romantic aboriginal Romeo] raises his love-directed waddy and strikes his dusky Juliet an amorous blow on the skull, and then drags her away to the home his love has built for her.
1898		E. Dyson ‘Hebe of Grasstree’ in Below and On Top 🌐 Cleever – ‘Fighting’ Cleever – with his ‘peacemaker,’ a wicked-looking ‘waddy.’.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.].
1902		Sun. Times (Perth) 30 Mar. 3/2: If the girls object, they have their heads cracked with a waddy.
c.1905		J. Furphy Buln-Buln and the Brolga (1948) 🌐 Guess how many we got? [...] Jist on’y the feller with the waddy.
1907		Truth (Wellington) 16 Feb. 7/5: The waddy, a long-handled ‘cat’ of six tails, made of leather.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 17 July 4/7: Why is the local post office like a blackfellow’s camp? Because you can always find a ‘Waddy’ there .
1923–4		F. Anthony ‘Mowing Our Hay’ in Me And Gus (1977) 53: Take that waddy, Mark.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 88: By damn! None of that bad language or I’ll take a waddy to you.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 113: S’pose they expect us ter fight with waddies, nulla-nullas an’ boomerangs.
1954		T. Ronan Vision Splendid 299: The man [...] had stood off the redoubtable Pick-handle Nailon with a storm of abuse and a two-handed waddy.
1960		‘Nino Culotta’ Cop This Lot 143: ‘You are seeing this stick?’ ‘Bloody good lump of a waddy, too.’.
1973		(con. 1930s) F. Huelin ‘Keep Moving’ 55: The first [proposal] [...] was for everyone to arm himself with a waddy or similar weapon and have a go at the demons.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 120/1: waddy piece of wood; Baker suggests possibly pidgin Maori for ‘wood’ as well as pidgin Aboriginal for ‘club.’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].