Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus./W.I.) one who lives in the country.

1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 May. 9/4: Not a solitary ‘bushy’ would ‘spot’ a horse for even a cake of cheap tobacco.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 13/4: ‘How about Student, though?’ asked the bushy. ‘Oh, you must pe kweek,’ snapped the ‘book’.
1892		H. Lawson ‘The Captain of the Push’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 187: I am nothing but a bushy and a dunce.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Nov. 15/2: The bushie swaggered down the street to see what he could see, / And fell in with a pretty girl, who said ‘Now come with me / And shout some stout and oysters dear, for your own darling Liz – ’ / Then fled away his mopusses, with a whiz, whiz, whiz.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 6 May 10/2: I saw a poor bushie taken down for his last bob by three of these tugs.
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘White-when-he’s-wanted’ in Three Elephant Power 51: The man was monosyllabic to a degree, as the real bushmen generally are. It is only the rowdy and the town-bushy that are fluent of speech.
1918		R.H. Knyvett ‘Over There’ with the Australians 87: A weather-beaten old bushie.
1929		Townsville Daily Bull. (Qld) 10 Aug. 16/2: Beer is your boss, an’ you’re just a mate, me bearded bushie.
1933		Townsville Daily Bulletin 3 Aug. 5/1: ‘Dosser Doyle’ by ‘Bushie Bill’.
1943		J.A.W. Bennett ‘Eng. as it is Spoken in N.Z.’ in AS XVIII:2 Apr. 88: The same method of word formation gives [...] yachty (yachtsman), bullocky (bullock driver), bushy (bushman).
1959		D. Niland Gold in the Streets (1966) 140: Ed’s a bushy.
1961		(ref. to 1930s) W.E. Harney Grief, Gaiety and Aborigines 21: I do notice the city people go into the bush for a holiday and pass by us bushies heading for the ‘Big smoke’.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dictionary’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxii 7/1: bushie: A person from the outback, recognisable by wearing of Stamina trousers and a large Akubra hat.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 14: They were both originally bushies. [...] Bouncy Brenda came from down around Port Kembla or somewhere.
1987		B. Chatwin Songlines 76: We also bought some steak for an old ‘bushie’.
1995		G. Whaley Dad and Dave [screenplay] Scene ix: ‘Rustics’, ‘bushies,’ ‘cow-cockies’ or ‘rubes’ are portrayed as slow-thinking, small-minded, inbred, intolerant.
1999		Observer 7 Nov. 23: The connotations of privilege so resented by the ‘battlers and bushies’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.
2012		D. Whish-Wilson ‘In Savage Freedom’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] Talkin like a bushie already.

2. (Aus.) a bushranger.

1890

Dead Bird (Sydney) 1 Feb. 2/1: A bushranger happened to stop a parson one day [...] ‘And what profession are you?’ yelled the bushie.

3. (S.Afr.) a half-caste.

1984		Frontline Feb. 26: There are bushies living all over the ‘white’ suburbs [DSAE].
1989		J. Hobbs Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary 198: He put his hand up to his fuzz of dark hair and grabbed a fistful. ‘This is bush, see? And I’m a bushy. Not quite black and not quite white.’.