Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus.) the Sydney Bulletin.

1888		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Dec. 5/4: [heading] The Bulletin is the Bushman’s Bible.
1903		P.F. Rowland New Nation 204: A backblocks’ shearer once told him that ‘if he had only sixpence left he would buy the Bulletin with it’. Whatever may be thought of the anti-religious and separatist principles of this ‘Bushman’s Bible,’ it must be conceded to have done a very real service to Australia in the encouragement of literature.
1915		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Jan. 14/3: Australia’s unique illustrated paper, so popular in the Bush as to be nicknamed the Bushman’s Bible – the Sydney Bulletin.
1921		Cairns Post (Qld) 4 Oct. 4/5: Some day the honest worker will see the truth in a sermon illustrated on page eight of the ‘Bushman’s Bible’ (The Bulletin of September 22nd).
1931		Townsville Daily Bull. (Qld) 6 Jan. 11/3: Many articles on the financial situation [...] have been inflicted on readers of ‘he Bushman’s Bible’.
1944		Western Mail (Perth) 28 Sept. 21/3: ‘The Bulletin,’ the Bushman’s Bible of former days, seems to have lost caste somewhat amongst these dwellers out-back.
1948		R. Raven-Hart Canoe in Aus. 187: ‘Bulletin’ [...] still influential out-back, ‘Bushman’s Bible’ .
1958		(ref. to 1900s) R. Ward Aus. Legend 207: The influence enjoyed by ‘The Bushman’s Bible’ [...] may be gained from the sales figures.
1973		R. Edwards Aus. Bawdy Ballads 4: The Sydney Bulletin, known as the ‘Bushman’s Bible’ because of its keen appreciation of outback life .

2. other publications awarded a similar role.

1888		Queenslander (Brisbane) 11 Feb. 218/2: Several years ago an able atricle appeared in the Queenslander that did great good. I find the Queenslander in the far West [...] and in many cases it ios the bushman’s bible.
1919		Worker (Brisbane) 6 Mar. 6/3: The battles that it waged during the great shearers’ strike [...] established ‘The Worker’ as ‘The Bushman’s Bible.’ The ‘Bushman’s Bible’ it has remained ever since.
1927		Sun. Times (Perth) 21 Aug. 14/3: Unable to read or write, except as regards figures in the Ready Reckoner (the Bushman’s Bible in those days).
1936		Western Mail (Perth) 24 Sept. 41/3: ‘The Corner’ [a regular column] is the bushman’s bible, or the nearest approach to it, barring cuss-words.
1940		Western Mail (Perth) 11 Jan. 2/5: With countless numbers throughout the State I have come to regard the ‘Western Mail’ as the Bushman’s Bible.
1952		Townsville Daily Bull. (Qld) 3 July 5/4: You have kept in touch with the north through the medium of the ‘North Queensland Register,’ or, as you call it, the ‘Bushman’s Bible’.

3. a newspaper.

1894

Kilmore Free Press 1 Feb. 1/1: I enjoyed a lazy day, and was reading the ‘Bushman’s Bible’ (the newspaper), when my dog pricked up his ears.

(Aus.) evacuating the nostrils by closing one and snorting out the mucus from the other.

1999		T. Winton Lockie Leonard, Scumbuster 67: Dot [...] ripped off another bushman’s blow that sent snot and seawater all over the dune.
2011		G. Goldbloom Paperback Show 246: The sergeant presses one nostril closed and ejects a frothy stream of mucus from his nose, a bushman’s blow.
2023		D. Whish-Wilson I Am Already Dead 92: [C]learing his nostrils with the bushman’s blow on the limestone.

(Aus.) a look around and a cough, or any other minimal ‘breakfast’.

[1981		Sydney Morning Herald 18 Nov. 8: We must [...] applaud TCN 9’s attempt to break new ground with the Sunday morning current affairs, and I was quite prepared to have a drink of water, a good look around, and settle to a two-hour bash.].
1982		Southerly 42 437: ‘The bushman’s breakfast’, variously described as a shave and a spit and a good look around, a hitch in the belt and attention to natural requirements, a drink of water and a good look around, and so on.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 24/1: bushman’s breakfast a yawn, a stretch, a piss and a look round.
1990		G.A. Wilkes Dict. Aus. Colloquialisms (3rd edn) 62/1: bushman’s breakfast Variously described as ‘a drink of water and a good look around’, ‘a hitch in the belt and a good look around’, ‘a shave and a shit and a good look around’: echoed in the title of the Phillip Theatre review of the 1960s, ‘A cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

(Aus.) a kookaburra or laughing jackass.

1846		C.P. Hodgson Reminiscences of Aus. 165: Laughing Jackass [...] is well and truly stiled the Bushman’s clock.
1853		J. Sherer Gold Finder of Australia 102: With the first peep of dawn we were roused by the laugh of the jackass-bird—an extraordinary creature, which passes by the name of the Bushman’s Clock.
1862		C. Aspinall Three Years in Melbourne 204: I heard the laughing Jackass, which is [...] from its regular habits, called the Bushman’s clock.
1880		‘Edward Howe’ Roughing It in Van Diemen’s Land 45: It is sometimes called the ‘bushman’s clock’, because it laughs before sunrise, at noon, and at sundown.
1893		Auckland Star (N.Z.) 9 Dec. 3/7: The laughing jackass is the bushman’s clock.
1919		Register (Adelaide) 16 Sept. 9/6: he is sometimes called the bushman’s clock from the regularity of his morning calls.
1922		Western Argus (Kalgoorlie, WA) 5 Dec. 35/2: Outback ‘jacky’ is regarded as the bushman’s clock, for at first streak of day this uncanny bird fills the paddock [...] with homeric peals of laughter.
1930		Brisbane Courier 22 Nov. 19/6: The laughing jackass [...] used to be the bushman’s (or settler’s) clock.
1947		Western Mail (Perth) 11 Sept. 30/3: He is also known as [...] Great Laughing Jackass, Bushman’s Clock or Settler’s Clock.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 231/1: bushman’s clock see laughing jackass.
1956		Argus (Melbourne) 16 Feb. 20/7: The Swaggie‘s Alarm Clock [...] We’ve called him ‘jacky’, ’laughing johnny’, ‘jacko’, breakfast bird’ and bushman’s clock’.
1962		Marshall & Drysdale Journey among Men 90: To a south-eastern Australian a kookaburra that doesn’t laugh is a bit of a fraud, for, from the earliest colonial days, the so-called bushman’s dock has held a strong place in the affections of our people.
1970		D. Butts Down Under Up Close 38: In some areas, the kookaburra is found in such numbers that his morning call is known as the ‘bushman’s clock’.

1. (S.Afr.) a large bush-cutting knife.

1880		E.F. Sandeman Eight Months in Ox-Waggon 348: A ‘Bushman’s Friend,’ as the cheap open-bladed knives are designated, which are chiefly used for skinning and killing game, and any other rough purpose [DSAE].
1907		J. Fitzpatrick Jock of the Bushveld (1909) 113: Catching the buck by the head, held it down with one knee on its neck and my Bushman’s Friend in hand to finish it [DSAE].
1964		G. Campbell Old Dusty 138: ‘No, Inkosi, I don’t want money, but if you will give me that knife in your belt, I will watch them and tell you what happens.’ I had a spare ‘Bushman’s friend’ in my kit, so agreed to the Swazi’s terms [DSAE].
1984		Bagpipe (St Andrew’s College, Grahamstown) 12 Sept. 12: What went wrong I don’t know, but Dooley burst out of his class room and dashed down the stairs, with Terry Lloyd after him with a ‘Bushman’s Friend’ [DSAE].

2. (N.Z.) any large-leafed plant that can be used as lavatory ‘paper’.

1980		R.M. Lockley House above the Sea 200: People don't much care for the way it [i.e. flannelweed] springs up [...] but it is a handsome plant with big, pointed, pale-green leaves (’the bushman’s friend’, as a tramper once called it, although this vulgar name has been applied to other large-leaved New Zealand plants – for practical reasons readers will guess) .
1985		Eve. Post (Wellington) 4 Jan. 9: Bushman’s friend, or rangiora, was not only used for letter writing and toilet paper. Tom Paul shows how the Maori used the leaves for a bandage tied with flax [DNZE].
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 40: bushman’s friend The rangiora, whose leaves are toilet-friendly to bushmen’s bums.

(Aus./N.Z.) a damper (a form of unleavened cake, baked in the ashes) and mustard.

1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 81: The bushman’s hot dinner, a meal of damper and mustard (tramps’ slang) [...] featured so often in outback life.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 24/1: bushman’s dinner mutton, damper and tea.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

(N.Z.) a distance that turns out to be (or seems) far further than expected.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 40: bushman’s mile Much more than the mile you expected. From late C19.

(US drugs) khat.

2003

Microgram Bulletin XXXVI:7 158: Khat (Catha edulis) – also known as African salad, bushman’s tea, gat, kat, miraa, qat, chat, tohai, and tschat – is a flowering shrub native to northeast Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.