Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus./N.Z.) to use a good deal of bad language.

1864		Nth Australian (Brisbane) 16 Jan. 2/4: [T]he host of [...] indigent swells, and men who could ‘talk nothing but bullock’ — to use their own slang .
[1869		Otago Daily Times (NZ) 6 Feb. 5/1: A small irregular open place, which seemed to be used by the wild cattle that frequent the bush as a sort of meeting place where they might talk bullock about the state of the grass, etc].
1870		Wellington Indep. (NZ) 8 Oct. 6/4: Well, we’ll talk bullock if you like.
1889		Transactions N.Z. Institute XXI 450: We hear of men on up Country stations who can do nothing but ‘talk bullock’; and so all men did to a great extent in days when both word and idiom had origin in cattle-speech.
1890		A.J. Vogan Black Police 116: He gave them a ‘touch’ of Australia. He could ‘talk bullock’ and ‘no flies’.
1941		(ref. to 1864) Baker N.Z. Sl. 47: As long ago as 1864 Charles R. Thatcher, the comic writer [...] used the expression to talk bullock. Thatcher also wrote: ‘If nice expressions you would learn, / Colonial and new, / Some bullock driver who is bogged / Is just the man for you.’.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 111/2: talk bullock bad language bullock drivers were noted for.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

(Aus.) a bullock-driver; thus bullock-punching n., working as a bullock-driver.

1866		Sth Aus. Advertiser 16 Oct. 3/4: To the Editor [...] I am, Sir, etc, Old Joe, The Bullock Puncher.
1878		Sth Aus. Register (Adelaide) 29 Oct. 6/1: Con By a Bullock-Puncher [...] Might the bullock drivers demonstration / Have been called an Ox Act agitation?
1882		N.Z. Observer (Auckland) 27 May 169/4: The Makarau Christian has been promoted from off-side bullock-puncher to head pot-wholloper in C.Y.’s culinary establishment.
1885		Observer and Freelance (Wellington) 29 Aug. 9/4: Why does not the bullock-puncher go to the Kauri so often now?
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 9 May 5/4: One of the bullock-punchers of the Far West had purchased a watch, and, like most of the watches out there, it stopped short, apparently never to go again.
1892		West Australian (Perth) 1 Feb. 2/3: When Mr Elliot has learned to read plain English [...] instead of the impertinces of a ‘bullock-puncher’.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 108: A bullock driver is known as a bullock-puncher, from the free use of the butt of the whip handle to punch the near-side bullocks.
1908		J. Gunn We of the Never-Never (1962) 53: He had decided to give bullock-punching a turn.
1913		Northern Star (Lismore, NSW) 21 Nov. 8/6: The most trusted bullock-puncher was commissioned to escort the lone bachelors’s lady love.
1918		C.J. Dennis ‘An Old Master’ in Backblock Ballads 20: William was, I pause to mention, livin’ on an old-age pension / Since he gave up bullock-punchin’ at the age of eighty three.
1926		Townsville Daily Bulletin 6 Nov. 11/2: Charlie had a run of heads that set the ‘tail’ backers blaspheming like old-time bullock-punchers.
1933		Sydney Morn. Herald 9 Dec. 7/1: The surveyors [...] will call all the information available from every boundary-rider, bullock puncher, bushwhacker, or school they meet.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 142: Nothing doing. Got a yodeller. Tell him to get back to his bullock-punching.
1956		Argus (Melborune) 22 Mar. 4/5: The famous tale of Queensland bullock-puncher, Ted Hawkins.
1982		Aus. Women’s Wkly 29 Sept. 83/1: The bullock driver — usually known as ‘bullocky’ or ‘bullock puncher’.

a mixture of strong beer and rum.

1949

M. Gilbert Doors Open in DSUE (1984).

see bee’s knees n.

port.

1933

‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 228: You may have a [...] bullock’s eye.

(Aus.) nonsense, rubbish.

1941

Baker Pop. Dict. Aus. Sl.

(Aus.) something insignificant.

1979

D. Maitland Breaking Out 278: ‘It took me years to get where I am, and now you’re saying it means snutthing,’ he slurred drunkenly. [...] ‘Not so much as a bullock’s fart in a thunderstorm,’ Chisholm assured him.

see under sold adj.