Green’s Dictionary of Slang

yacker v.1

also yacca, yakker
[yakka n.; note J.D. Lang, Cooksland (1847) 447: ‘The word yacca in the Moreton Bay dialect of the Aboriginal language, is one of those unfortunate words that has more than double duty to perform. It signifies everything in the shape of service or performance from the first incipient attempts at motion, to the most violent exertion, and it usually takes its signification from the noun to which it is appended, as in the instance [...] mooyoom yacca, to read, to write, or to cast accounts.’]

(Aus.) to work hard, to labour.

Show quotations
J.D. Lang Cooksland 123: ‘What for Commandant yacca paper?’ What is the gentleman working at the paper for?
‘Eight Yrs.’ Resident’ Queen of Colonies 337: Whitefellow yacker (work), bullock yacker, yarraman (horse) yacker, baal gentleman [AND].
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Nov. 19/1: The stevedore must yacker for the bit he gets to eat.
E.J. Brady Way of Many Waters in Bulletin vol. 100 (1980) 260: So you yakker, yakker, yakker, / For the drop o’ beer an’ bacca, / For to earn your bloomin’ clobber an’ / th3 bit of tuck you eat.
[Aus]Sun. Times (Perth) 19 May 4/8: I’ve got a fairly comfortable cop, / Cos the kingpin lets me yacker as I please.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Dec. 13/2: When the bushman goes off to yakker in the big timber he does not, as a usual thing, carry a medical outfit.
L.J. Villiers Changing Year 8: ’Ow’d he fancy it fer yakkerin on a thresher?
[Aus]Dly Mercury (Mackay, Qld) 13 May 3/4: There is no basic wage for them, and it is only by yackering from jackass to jackass and taking no heed of the hours that ends can be made to meet.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 24 June 22/2: I was yakkering on Brooklyn station, Windellama Creek (N.S.W.).
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Jan. 20/1: ‘Do we have to yacker this afternoon?’ asked one of the hands.