Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a white man living beyond the bounds of ‘civilization’; also attrib. [Jagara dhugai-tu, a wandering white man].

1845		‘The Raid of the Aborigines’ in Bell’s Life in Sydney 4 Jan. 4/1: For tho' as you know, when a- shepherd we kill / The Jackeroo's all smoke their pipes, and sit still [...] Let the pale Jackeroo's view his waddy with dread.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 30 May 22/3: ‘[T]he little woman’ and her attendant sirens were lavishing their sweetest No. 1 smiles upon two sunburnt ‘Jackeroos’ from the Namoi, who were enjoying a fortnight’s ‘bust’ .
1899		‘Tom Bluegum’ Backblocks’ Parson 15: ‘Just the man for the district,’ had been the enthusiastic comment, [...] ‘Rhoide like a jackeroo,’ boss Wilson was just saying.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 July 4/7: The Jackeroo prospector, hugging and mugging in the barmaid’s arms.
1905		H. Lawson ‘Joseph’s Dreams and Reuben’s Brethren’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 97: He’d never seen a jackaroo / With such a coat as Joe’s.
1930		W.K. Hancock Australian 292: A new vocabulary of the Bush – [...] bushwacker, billy, cooee, swag, swaggie, humpy, stockman, jackaroo.
1956		T. Ronan Moleskin Midas 47: I’m lost like a bleedin’ jackeroo.
1960		A. Buzo Front Room Boys Scene i: Robbo, you old jackeroo.
1968		R.D. Magoffin We Bushies 39: A city wife in Sydney Town / Heard on the National News: / ‘The police have charged the Dubbo man / Who shot two jackeroos’.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 81: The people who live [in the Outback] are a minority cult called dinkum Aussies. They are divided into cockies, drovers and jackaroos.
1994		Penguin Bk of Aus. Jokes 365: A big young Irish jackeroo from Wellmoringle comes into town for the first time in twenty-two months.
2003		Guardian G2 5 June 3: The jackeroos roll into town for a squizz at the ankle-biter.

2. (also jackaree) a man newly arrived from Britain to gain experience in the bush; also attrib. [Baker, The Australian Language (1945), suggests Queensland Aborigine tchaceroo, the shrike, which ‘talks’ a great deal, orig. applied to a group of German missionaries settled near Brisbane and thence all whites; a corruption of jacky raw n.; jack n.¹¹ + SE kangaroo].

1864		Brisbane Courier 7 July 2/6: ‘Don’t ride that horse! He is too fiery! Take Bugalugs - he’s quiet.’ ‘Sir,’ (said the jackaroo, who had just saddled the ‘interdicted steed,’ and did not like the trouble of letting him go and catching another.) ‘Sir, I can ride buck-jumpers. There’s no fear but I can sit him’ .
1870		Otago Daily Times 16 Apr. 2/5: One day a ‘jackaroo’ was cleaning the carbines, and carefully pointed one at the head of a friend. I told him to point them up always when handling them.
1880		W. Senior Travel and Trout 19: Jackaroos – the name given to young gentlemen newly arrived from home to gather colonial experiences.
1887		‘Aus. Colloquialisms’ in All Year Round 30 July 66/2: When [the new chum] goes up country to a sheep or cattle station, in order to get practical experience of the work [...] he is there known as a ‘jackaroo,’ or ‘colonial-experience’.
1889		Otago Daily Times 20 July 2: About 100 persons assembled [...] to hear a lecture, entitled ‘The Experience of a Jackaroo,’ [...] The lecturer, after explaining that a ‘jackaroo’ meant ‘a new chum’ related his experiences of station life in Queensland after coming to that colony from Home.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 July 13/4: [I]t was not till a loud guffaw from the people in hiding was heard that the poor jackeroo knew that he had soaked his only decent togs for naughts.
1893		Hawke’s Bay Herald (NZ) 23 Feb. 4/2: A ‘Jackaroo’ confided to me how valiantly he slew his first snake.
1901		H. Lawson ‘The Bush Fire’ in Roderick (1972) 433: There came a jackeroo on a visit to the station. He was related to the bank with which Wall had relations.
1902		Falkirk Herald 17 May 5/6: ‘Jackaree,’ [sic] means a new chum.
1919		L. Esson Drovers (1977) 4: The jackaroo fired his revolver at a dingo, and rushed the mob off camp.
1924		G.H. Lawson Dict. of Aus. Words And Terms 🌐 JACKAROO – A young man learning station work.
1924		Lawrence & Skinner Boy in Bush 68: He didn’t want the young Jackeroo planted on him, to teach any blankey thing to.
1936		‘Banjo’ Paterson Shearer’s Colt 7: There was something about the cut of the pants and the quality of the hat that differentiated the jackeroos (Englishmen getting colonial experience).
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 61: Jackeroo, used originally to describe a young Englishman learning sheep or cattle farming.
1951		E. Hill Territory 431: They had no time for a bumptious man or [...] a station manager or a jackeroo from the cities, who might be the boss’s nephew, or going to marry his daughter.
1954		T. Ronan Vision Splendid 303: ‘I nearly burned it down.’ ‘How was that?’ ‘Oh, usual new-chum jackeroo style.’.
1957		J. Greenway ‘Australian Cattle Lingo’ in AS XXXIII:3 166: jackeroo, n. A greenhorn; tenderfoot.
1965		L. Haylen Big Red 69: His subaltern [...] was now with him on the station getting colonial experience — a jackeroo.
1977		T. Ronan Mighty Men on Horseback 185: You’d known Top since he was a raw jackeroo.
1986		G.A. Wilkes Exploring Aus. Eng. 7: In 1942, when there was an influx of American servicemen into Australia, the US War and Navy Departments issued a Pocket Guide to Australia which listed common expressions which might be encountered. The Guide explained that [...] to smooge was ‘to pitch woo’, a sheila was ‘a babe’, the Pommies were ‘the British,’ shikkered meant ‘drunk’ and jackaroo was ‘a tenderfoot on a sheep ranch’.

3. (also jack) a young hired hand.

1891		Star (Canterbury) 18 May 3/4: The bosses consider that we are just worth / Our tucker, without any screw, / And if they are asked they will always affirm / No bush for a Town Jackaroo.
1902		Bulletin Reciter 1880–1901 193: He shouted for the jackeroos a-standing in the bar.
1908		J. Gunn We of the Never-Never (1962) 14: We rode [...] with Jackaroo, the black ‘boy’, bringing up the rear.
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘White-when-he’s-wanted’ in Three Elephant Power 49: He had half-a-dozen of us — jackaroos and colonial-experiencers — who got nothing a year, and earned it.
1923		J. Bowes Jackaroos 200: This was the preliminary job, which the jackaroos and the blackboys were to undertake.
1931		‘William Hatfield’ Sheepmates 147: Well I started as a jackeroo on this place twenty-five years ago, and I’ve managed it now for the last fifteen.
1942		A.L. Haskell Waltzing Matilda 138: Those three youths are jackaroos.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 24: Mrs Dalgety fell for him straight away, and he graduated from jackeroo to gigolo in one season.
1962		‘David Forrest’ Hollow Woodheap 39: Jackeroos [...] do not shear sheep. They mend fences.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxv 6/3: jackaroo: A male station hand.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 78: ‘Have you got any jackaroos on this station?’ [...] ‘Only two of ’em at the moment — Jacks, I mean — but we have run to six’.
1976		D. Ireland Glass Canoe (1982) 10: Learning to imitate sheep, or even sheepherders, jackeroos, slaughtermen.
1981		P. Barton Bastards I Have Known 55: He was a jackeroo who completed the team which looked after the livestock.
1996		Penguin Bk of More Aus. Jokes 230: A young bloke, fresh out of a school from the big smoke, has just arrived to begin work as a jackeroo on a cattle station.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 24 Oct. 10: He saddled up a horse in the cattle station where he’d been working as a jackaroo (a young hired hand).
2004		L. Redhead Peepshow [ebook] All the jobs he’d done — jackeroo, miner, building boats.
2015		Guardian 4 Nov. 🌐 [photo caption] Jackaroo Malcolm Chilmon, Jilaroo Susan Gilmore and stationhand Mark Ashlin at Victoria River Downs station.
2020		G. Disher Consolation 184: An overseer and his wife named Waurn, and two or three jackaroos.