galah, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

galah n.

[SE galah, the rose-breasted grey-backed Aus. cockatoo ‘much given to chatter’]

(Aus.)

1. a fool; thus galah-ish adj.

1936		Sun. Times (Perth) 21 June 11/2: When we eat the grub of garrets— / Cag-mag meat, with spuds and carrots / We’ll galah around like parrots .
1940		H. Drake-Brockman Hot Gold I iii: That Rienzi [...] A black-eyed nasty-tempered galah.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 74: What’s wrong with this galah?
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 90: I got better ideas than some of the galahs that give us our orders.
1960		‘Nino Culotta’ Cop This Lot 180: Quit shovin’ or I’ll get out an’ tread on yer, yer galah.
1968		D. O’Grady Bottle of Sandwiches 28: All he did was laugh. Made us feel a bit sheepish, as well as galah-ish.
1973		P. Wilson N.Z. Jack 124: Don’t be a flaming galah, Ken.
1979		D. Maitland Breaking Out 169: You are a bloody lop-eared, [...] lame-brained, pig-headed, fart-faced flip of a fucking galah!
1984		C. Thiele ‘Lock-Out’ in Chatfield & Williamson Aus. Stories 98: Nice couple of galahs we’d look if the police turned up.
1989		R.G. Barrett Boys from Binjiwunyawunya 314: That big red-headed galah from Queensland.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 159: ‘Ay Ern? Whyntcha give this galah a bit of a reminder about good ole Gloaming?’.
1999		Indep. Rev. 28 Aug. 5: Make girls and galahs out of us.
1999		R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] ‘It’s a fuckin show on TV you peanut [...] Surely you two galahs watch it’.
2018		G. Gilmore Class Act [ebook] [H]e’d forgotten his chips and forgotten to pay, wasn’t he a galah!
2018		R. O’Neill ‘Ocker’ in The Drover’s Wives (2019) 180: [to a dog] ‘Get out of it you flamin’ galah!’.

2. a chap, a fellow.

1941		K. Tennant Battlers 54: That store ain’t done enough business in ten years to feed a galah.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 26: He’ll scone that galah.
1960		‘Nino Culotta’ Cop This Lot 40: Great joint this [...] Dong some galah an’ yer get a free beer.
1999		P. Temple Black Tide (2012) [ebook] Tuned by these galahs just the other day. Charge like proctologists.
2001		(con. 1945–6) P. Doyle Devil’s Jump (2008) 56: What’s that galah up to?

In compounds

galah session (n.)

(Aus.) an interval set aside regularly on the Flying Doctor radio network for anyone who wishes to exchange news and gossip rather than make emergency calls.

1956		H. Hudson Flynn’s Flying Doctors 119: At the Cloncurry Base I listened in to the ‘Galah Session’, as menfolk call it, also known as the Gossip Session, but officially Intercommunication Between Outposts.
1969		A. Garve Boomerang 27: I heard them at it at once, one a set at the Henry. Boy, did they jabber! And that’s what we call a galah session.
1978		Port & Carroll Aus. Inventors 116: Outback wives soon learned that they could use the radio to talk to other outback wives, and the daily ‘galah session’ became an established institution.
1995		B. Bickmore Back of Beyond 346: You have to tell everyone on the galah session that you’re getting married.
2001		(ref. to 1930s) Hist. Royal Flying Doctor Service 🌐 In time the ‘Galah Session’ developed which allowed a chat among neighbours who could be hundreds of kilometres away. This Session was named after the noisy, chattering, grey and pink native parrot.