Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus.) Wooloomooloo, a tough, working-class suburb of Sydney.

1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Sept. 11/1: The Indian jugglers, the back lanes of ’Loo, / Are just teeming with hearts that are faithful and true.
1916		C.J. Dennis ‘Sari Bair’ in Moods of Ginger Mick 45: There wus Trent, ex-toff, uv England; there wus Green, ex-pug, uv ’Loo.
1920		Sydney Morn. Herald 4 Dec. 17/6: The artistic and the intellectual side of the ‘Loo’ is to be found, but only by those who know the ‘Loo’.
1933		New Call (Perth, WA) 13 Apr. 19/3: Dirty little vagabonds down the hill in the Loo have cause to re member that little indiscretion.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1949		R. Park Poor Man’s Orange 274: The little slum houses of the ’Loo.
1957		J.M. Hosking ‘Move On Please!’ Aus. First and Last 41: Once walking in the ’Loo, / Having nothing else to do / We pitched a bit of woo.
1963		‘Geoffrey Tolhurst’ Flat 4 King’s Cross (1966) 17: I finally took a room in Cathedral Street, in the ‘Loo,’ and even that cost me four pounds.
1973		(con. 1940s–60s) Hogbotel & ffuckes ‘The Bastard from the Bush’ in Snatches and Lays 82: I’ve been in every two-up school from Darwin to the ’Loo.
1974		J. Gaby Restless Waterfront 245: You had to live in the ’Loo or at the Point for that.
1986		R.G. Barrett Godson 50: Norton headed down to Woolloomooloo [...] The Eddys were revving up for another Sunday at the ‘Loo’.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 151: [H]e fell off the wharf down the ’Loo whilst fishing for yellowtail.
2001		(con. 1945–6) P. Doyle Devil’s Jump (2008) 243: The bloke who’d recognized the Blighter [...] was a deadbeat from the ’Loo.
2003		Bug (Aus.) July 🌐 It was more down the ’Loo way of this brown land that the bloodiest of the most recent dress code battles was fought.

2. (Aus.) Borroloola, a town in the Northern Territory, where the majority of the population are native Australians.

1947		W.E. Harney North of 23° 44: We returned from the ‘Loo’ to the Georgina River.
1975		K. Willey Ghosts of the Big Country 31: Old Man Sneddon has been commuting [...] between the dry season in Coober Peady, where he is an opal buyer [...] and the Wet in Borroloola. He still ‘sits down’ in ‘The Loo’ for several months each year in a galvanised iron house.