Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. Aus.) a small sack or similar container in which articles are carried; thus dilly-bags of.

1845		‘The Raid of the Aborigines’ in Bell’s Life in Sydney 4 Jan. 4/1: Who had filled with fat beef all their dillies and bags.
1847		A. Marjoribanks Travels in New South Wales 85: A stone knife or blade of steel, carried about [...] in a small dilly under the arm – is scarcely ever laid aside.
1881		A.C. Grant Bush-Life in Queensland II 191: Their own dilly-bags have nothing of value or interest in them.
1890		R.M. Praed Romance of a Station I 102: Six great slimy crabs [...] crawled out of a dilly-bag.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Sept. 14/2: Australian aboriginals can go considerably further. I have seen a lot of infant’s bones in a gin’s ‘dilly-bag,’ and was told that said bones belonged to a piccaninny of hers which died in its first year.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 July 13/1: They have to put up with the old cast-off wives off the patriarchs, to carry the swag and the dilly-bag.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 July 22/2: I sent her after crabs, and proceeded to inspect her dilly bag.
1923		J. Bowes Jackaroos 125: There’s some dilly-bags hanging on that bough.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 17: There were other handsome articles lying about, some in wraps of paper-bark, finely woven dilly-bags and slings and belts.
1945		E. George Two at Daly Waters 77: Once everything is gone, the pair [...] take their dilly bag with all their worldly goods, and walk, perhaps for hundreds of miles.
1955		P. White Tree of Man (1956) 466: She was swinging her little dillybag, in which was a packet of something from the shop.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 24: You won’t need more clobber [...] than you can fit into one dilly bag.
1977		T. Ronan Mighty Men on Horseback 83: They had [...] been stored in the original recipient’s dilly bag along with his razor, bullets, and spare tobacco.
1993		Aus. Word Map 🌐 dilly bag. 1. a small bag for odds and ends. 2. toilet or make-up bag.