Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. bad; terrible; no good.

1903		Sun (Kalgoorlie) 13 Sept. 4/4: ‘I see,’ observed a sport, who has just just returned from the racing carnival, ‘that a sporting writer calls the Kanowna course ‘the Onkaparinga of W.A.’’ His friend shook a few pounds of ironstone dust out of the clothes he was preparing to put in a box. ‘I dunno about the ‘Paringa’ part,’ he grunted, ‘but he’s perfectly correct as regards the ‘Onkus’!’.
1904		Worker (Wagga Wagga) 5 Nov. 7/1: Redbank is a very onkus place, one of Young’s contract sheds, a close cut, bad sheep, and a very mixed lot of men.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Sept. 4/8: And if you’d make a bet, / Or would learn to dodge a debt, / Have a ticket on my ‘Onkus Educator’.
1905		Eve. Mail (Fremantle, WA) 1 Sept. 4/6: Weather Clark, a new man, has been ‘honkus.¦ Perhaps he thinks about the mistakes he makes in his accounts, consequently there is an excuse for him going to sleep.
1905		Eve. Mail (Fremantle, WA) 26 Aug. 4/6: Renfrey scored one goal, but was absolutely ‘honkas,’ and was of no assistance to his side whatsoever.
1905		Sun (Kalgoorlie) 8 Oct. 4/8: Well, ‘ere we are again; all bright an’ shinin’ like a new pin, s’elp me bob. I told yer all six moon ago that I was goin’ ter put away all th’ onkus mob an’ the crookies; an spare me days I’m ‘having another shot at the mungs this time once again.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 8 Nov. 1/4: ‘We are never so happy or so miserable as we imagine.’ That may be, but it’s pretty onkus to be broke on Monday when the ghost doesn’t walk until Friday.
1913		Truth (Perth) 8 Nov. 1/4: ‘We are never so happy or so miserable as we imagine.’ That may be, but it’s pretty onkus to be broke on Monday when the ghost doesn’t walk until Friday.
1914		N Truth (Wellington) 22 Aug. 8: The only good point about the visitors’ play was the tackling, but, of course, this could not sustain the demands made upon it, and was very ‘onkus’ towards the end.
1916		NZ Truth (Wellington) 21 Oct. 11: [Y]ou can well understand that no Italian wishes to be called a Greek. The people are all right, maybe, but the Greek rulers are onkas to a degree.
1916		Sydney Sportsman 5 Ap. 7/3: It is honkus [...] that such a once fine body is in the position it is to-day. Who is to blame?
1917		NZ Truth (Wellington) 17 Mar. 9: One horse that ran at Napier on the opening day was othyreoniusical. If this word is too much of a mouthful, just read it as ‘onkus’.
1924		E.G. Murphy ‘Dossin’ Outer Doors’ Dryblower’s Verses 5: You’ll reckon things is pretty onkus— / Dossin’ outer doors.
1922		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 29 Apr. 19/3: ‘Got a wire t’ say th’ ol’ man ’ad snuffed. ’E was a good age, a real ’ard ol’ battler - but, all th’ same, it’s pretty onkus, y’ know’.
1930		Education (Sydney) 15 Dec. 39/2: But her argument is wonky and (in so far as she infers a sexual superiority from a sexual difference) her conclusion is onkus.
1932		Feilding Star (NZ) 1 ept. 4: Yesterday I was told [...] Feilding was referred to as a place of stumps and cows. [...] I thought it was ‘onkas,’ to use the expression of my native land, to refer to your district in such language.
1937		Partridge DSUE 589/1: ongcus, or -cuss, onkiss; mostly oncus or, esp. onkus. […] Inferior or bad; unjust; Australians’: from ca. 1914.
1939		Press (Canterbury, NZ) 4 Mar. 4s: Their whiskers were honkus, their fur was on end, / And their tails were all minus their permanent bend.
1941		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Feb. 11/1: Yet who can say if criticism’s ‘oke’ / Or ‘onkus’?
1943		Waihi Dly Teleg. (NZ) 3 Nov. 3: Mrs Tom says the garden’s looking very onkus, so to the knot-hole to-day in the sunshine; meaning, it might rain for the garden to-morrow.
1947		N. Lindsay Halfway to Anywhere 209: ‘But cripes, I’m a pretty onkus mug on the stage. Cripes, I’d make a mull of it’.
1951		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Mar. 12/1: The frog’s ear for music is obviously so onkus that he associates the sound made by the file with the voice of some frogly croonette.
1961		G. Mill Nobodsy Dies But Me (2003) 1: It’s a great joy and relief to visit Lady Palm and her five lovely daughters, but I think I might be doing it too much because I sometimes feel onkus when it’s done. Not onkus in a bad way, just a bit off.

2. fraudulent; crooked; fake; of a competition, fixed.

1903		Mt Magnet Miner (WA) 15 Aug. 2/8: Mr Wark [...] said, in reference to the umpire, that he had been told that Mr Coon was ‘onkus’, which meant that he was ‘crook’, but he (the speaker) said this was not true.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Sept. 1/1: One Yiddisher Tommy who was alleged to be financially shaking scored over his detractors [...] his onkus book turned him in £1,500 profit.
1905		Sun (Kalgoorlie) 5 Nov. 12/3: One of the peds in question construed my remarks to infer that the whole lot were what is called, in the parlance of sport, ‘onkus’.
1906		Sun (Kalgoorlie) 11 Mar. 3/5: Whoever heard of a fight which some one or other did not stigmatise as a schlenter? I have heard nearly a score of ‘sports’ say that the fight was ‘onkus’ - that Thorn did not get hit hard enough to out him; that he went down to it, etc.
1907		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 13 Feb. 8/4: ONKUS, an expression in the vernacular of sportdom which is, firstly and lastly, a synonym for CROOKED.
1908		Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Mar. 1/1: These haunts of the onkus are largely patronised by evil farmers.
1923		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Mar. 3/1: Each Pope the other one reviled / And his credentials onkus styled.
1949		H.C. Bosman Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 20: For the going is difficult they would say ‘the game is hook’. Or crook. Or onkus .

3. drunk.

[1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 2 Sept. 3/2: Wife of a big ‘Australian’ boss bringing retribution on his silvering scalp. Has lately taken to copious, fizz, and while decidedly onkus-paringa, flaunts (hic) around the stage giving imbecilic (hic) kisses to pet chorus girls, whom, when sober, she looks scornfully down on from the eminence of 30-guinea gowns. Meanwhile the discarded other wife awaits the inevitable end in full assurance that she will be amply avenged].
1925		Grey River Argus (NZ) 10 Jan. 2: A man can be full, tight, shicker, spotted, swanked, rocky, canned, inky, rollicked, primed, stunned, intoxicate, doped, lit, merry, onkus, sozzled, blue-blind, buskined, but never drunk.
1943		Auckland Star (NZ) 30 Jan. 8: Now Auld Jock and Bluey, having successfully partnered a crown-and-anchor board and spending the proceeds A.W.L. in Cairo Y.M.C.A.’s, had arrived back in camp decidedly ‘onkus’. They were put to bed, and about 2 a.m. awoke, very hungry.
1943		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Apr. 12/4: He’s promised a fiver, draws a quid on account and we celebrates. Well, that Sunday night the mob gathers in the church, and me mate, a bit onkus, is at the organ.

4. used adv. badly, poorly.

1906

Tocsin (Melbourne) 19 July 5/1: When thing’s is goin’ onkus, an’ when things is goin’ shine, / When you’re walkin’ on your uppers - or you’ve got a bonza mine.

5. of food or drink: disgusting, awful; off or rotten.

1906		Sun (Kalgoorlie) 16 Dec. 9/2: [S]he started to smite the unfortunate schnapper-seller hip and thigh, ‘I’ll teach yer to sell onkus fish (bang), yer dirty Dago (bash). Me old pot belted me for a cooking of it for his tea (smack), and me thinking it was fresh (biff)’.
1909		Sun. Times (Perth) 25 Apr. 4/7: Poultry goes off at the first bugle-call, the joints also dwindling to scrag of kangaroo and onkus spuds before half the deluded customers have pushed aside their unsavory soup.
1922		NZ Truth (Wellington) 10 June 4: [headline] Onkus Oysters [...] ‘Do you know that of the first shipment of oysters sold at the Government depot in Auckland half of them would be unfit for human consumption’.
1942		Molong Exp. (NSW) 11 Sept. 10/1: The tucker may be onkus, / The water may be crook, / We haven’t seen a drop of beer / Since Wavell took Tobruk.
1947		N. Lindsay Halfway to Anywhere 84: He took a pull at it, adding, ‘A bit onkus, but drinkable. Have a swig’.
1949		H.C. Bosman Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 101: The soup was crook. It was onkus.
1956		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Jan. 13/4: An Adelaide judge will ask counsel what a witness meant when he said he thought something had tasted ‘onkus’.
1989		H.C. Bosman in Bosman at His Best 84: The soup was crook. It was onkus. A yellow-bellied platypus couldn’t drink it.

6. of a mechanical device: broken; faulty; out of order.

1906		Mt Leonora Miner (WA) 19 May 2/3: They Say [...] That the boiler of the municiple tram engine was reckoned ‘onkus’. That a brief spell soon O.K.’d her.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 23 Dec. 4/7: I’d stood it [i.e. a tune] in six or seven keys, all onkus.
1906		Truth (Perth, WA) 13 Jan. 7/1: Our train service is distinctly ‘honkas’.
1939		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Jan. 21/1: But round about our homestead it’s a diferent story, quite / Suppose the windmill’s onkus or the pump’s not working right.
1941		Baker Pop. Dict. Aus. Sl. 51: ONKUS: [...] (of machinery) out of order.
1951		Chadsey, Morris & Wentworth Words 645/1: onkus adj. Slang. Faulty, marred, flawed.
1970		Partridge DSUE II 1309/2: onkeypoo or onkus, adj. Crooked; out of order: Australian: since ca. 1925.
1977		J. Ramsay Cop It Sweet 65: ONKUS: Incorrect; Out of order; Messed up.
1991		J.T. Pickle Aus.-Amer. Dict. 190: ONKUS: All wrong. Murphy’s law standards. Out of order. On the blink. Kaput.
1997		P. Howard Oz Slang n.p.: onkus - (something mechanical that is not working).

7. sick; ill; unwell; injured; out of sorts.

1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 14 July 9/3: The upright and honorable (and incapable) Stock Department solemnly takes its Bible oath, that swine fever is conspicuous by its absence at the Jetty, or admits that if Piggy IS a wee bit onkus, a mild dose of salts and senna will soon bring the bloom of health to its lovely cheek once again!
1923		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Dec. 22/2: 1923 Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Dec. 22/2 ‘They kep’ me sittin’ in the vestibool - it was as draughty as a ship’s riggin’ - more’n a hour by the clock on the wall, an’ I’m feelin’ pretty onkus, shiverin’ there, an’ sniffin’ the carbolicky pong of the place till the main squeeze is ready to ’ave a screw at me’.
1934		Recorder (Port Pirie, SA) 11 June 3/3: I remember being Onkus Paringa / And crook, with a deuce of a cold; / And all the fair dinkum remedies / That from morning till night I was told.
1936		J.J. Hardie Bridle Track n.p.: ‘Feeling better, Bill?’ ‘If I am I must have been pretty onkus before! How did I get here ... and when?’.
1940		Wireless Wkly (Sydney) 10 Aug. 4/1: Latest to succumb to the fashionable pastime of having measles is Bruce Anderson, of 2UE. Bruce went home last week looking like a leopard and feeling pretty onkus.
1946		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 May 29/1: They all had cash to back him as the ‘best since Jackie Howe,’ / But of course his back is onkus and he ‘couldn’t do it now’.
1949		Bulletin (Sydney) 20 July 33/5: ‘Honorable Itchiboko suffering from very onkus adenoids,’ he explained.

8. of people, upset, out of sorts, disagreeable.

1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 30 July 14/2: ‘T’ ’ell with th’ fancy! She’s been ’n’ slung me.’ Concern was apparently in Mucker’s red-rimmed eyes. ‘Dead onkers, Ponto?’.
1924		G.H. Lawson Dict. of Aus. Words and Terms 🌐 ONKUS—Unpleasant; absurd.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 61: onkus means disagreeable or unpleasant and was used in civilian life between the wars, revived by the 2nd AIF (see below), only to stagger on well into the 1960s, though it is rarely heard today.

9. used as a negative nickname.

1909		Feilding Star (NZ) 26 Apr. 4: A correspondent (‘Onkus’) waxes jocular on the subject.
1910		NZ Truth (Wellington) 3 Dec. 2: [H]e put a couple of pounds on Onkus in the race for which Boshter was ‘the pea’.
1920		Advocate (Burnie, Tas) 5 June 7/2: The nearest boy was asked to interpret the puzzle. He said it all meant that Onkus (a somewhat derogatory name, which might be applied to anybody) proposed to stay away from the cricket match, and visit the moving pictures with his ‘clue’ or ‘tabby,’ a girl from the S.C.E.G.G.S.
1926		Argus (Melbourne) 8 Sept. 5/4: Do you know a man working in a Sydney shop who is called ‘Onkus’ by the other men? - Yes: and he is pretty ‘onkus’ too'.

10. (rare) good, profitable, pleasant.

1910		NZ Truth (Wellington) 11 June 1: But ‘Critic’ asks the said gentleman to submit the following sentence to any school boy or semi-intelligent adult: ‘The Opposition are whipping the cat because they’ve got Buckley’s chance of pulling the leg of the farmer with an onkus freehold lurk’.
1913		Stratford Eve. Post (NZ) 30 July 2: It’s all ill wind that blows no good: it is an onkus wind (to say the least about it) that blows all good into only one quarter.
1926		‘Tingira’ June 28: O is for Onkus, which means O.K. / When things are good and all comes your way.
1937		Partridge DSUE 589/1: ongcus, or -cuss, onkiss; mostly oncus or, esp. onkus. (Of food) good; (of a place) passable. New Zealanders’: from ca. 1914, chiefly among the soldiers.
1938		Press (Canterbury, NZ) 2 Apr. 18: New Zealanders have their curiously sounding slang. [...] ‘midgic’ (one shilling), ‘ouzle’ (to wangle), ‘ongkus’ (good), ‘half a nicker’ (ten shillings), and ‘to turkey off’ (to depart).
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 51: onkus: [...] Occasionally used as a term of approval, and sometimes said as ‘honkus’.