groper n.2
1. a Western Australian; thus female groperess.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 1 July 7/2: The Old Gropers who govern Westralia. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 30 June 14/2: A man from a Groperdom way-back farming-district gave me the following reasons for so many couples living together unmarried: [...]. | |
| Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 79: GROPER: slang a nickname for West Australia citizens, an abbreviation of sandgroper. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 5 Mar. 1/1: A cold-shouldered Groperess haughtily explains that she ‘wouldn’t shake ’ands with a hactress’. | |
| ‘Them was the Days’ in Jarrahland Jingles 169: The railway coves wos fair ’ot swine, An’ so was them there Gropers. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Boy in Bush 41: Western Australia is full of old prisoners, black fellers, and white ones too. The whites, born here, is called ‘gropers’. | |
| ‘Bushman’ in Tell Us About the Turkey, Jo 95: The Groper shook off the hand that the red-bearded man had laid on his shoulder. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 233/2: Groper (Sandgroper) – a person from Western Australia. | |
| G’DAY 42: The Australian populace is divided into four distinct groupings: eastern states, [...] banana benders (Queenslanders), crow eaters (South Australians) and gropers or sandgropers (Western Ausgrtalians). |
2. attrib. use of sense 1.
| Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Aug. 4/8: Groper pencillers grow grumpy as they saw them flocking in. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Jan. 4/4: The Govemor’s wife’s dress shall be described first, and those of the Groper female ‘aristocracy’ next. |
3. as The Groper, the Daily News (Perth).
| Sun. Times (Perth) 26 Mar. 1/1: The spectacle of the old Groper slavering over a nigger-shooting suggests things [and] it doesn’t somehow chime with the paper’s picture of W.A. as a blacks’ paradise. |
In derivatives
pertaining to Western Australia.
| Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Sept. 1/1: The ‘West Australian’ still waddles along in groperian gloom. |
(Aus.) behaviour seen as typical of Western Australians.
| W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 5 May 1/1: The arrival of the Governor was attended by some awful examples of Groperism [and] the shoddy togs of the high local officials obviously staggered the well-attired importation. |
(Aus.) the city of Perth, WA.
| W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 2 June 1/1: Petherick and party are ignoring [Fremantle] for the glorification of Groperopolis. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 10 Dec. 1/1: Groperopolis should be prepared for an early visitation of crime [because] a horde of convicted thieves and spielers has disappeared from Melbourne [and] are making Westwards. |
In compounds
(Aus.) West Australia; thus Groperlander, an inhabitant of West Australia.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 14 July 6/1: The Parochialists of Groper Land have girded up their intelligence for the fray. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Nov. 4/7: An Eastern paper concerning the Groper State. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Aug. 4/8: A welcome you bet / You’ll certainly get / When alighting on Groperland shohr [sic]. | |
| Truth (Melbourne) 3 Jan. 3/5: The West Australian skiter [is] poiting out that Groperland is worth the other two territories put together. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Dec. 1s/7: Residents of a pretty spot on the South Coast of the Groper State. | |
| Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 33: Groperland, Western Australia. | |
| Aus. Lang. 186: Western Australians: gropers, sandgropers, groperlanders. | |
| Lingo 75: Sandgropers hail from Western Australia, or groperland. |