“Barbie” is probably the cutest slang ever for “barbecue”, but wait 'till you find out more, mate! You don't really know a language until you've learned its slang.
"Barbie" is Australian slang for barbecue and the phrase "slip a shrimp on the barbie" often evokes images of a fun social gathering under the sun. Australians, however, invariably use the word prawn rather than shrimp.
“Barbeque” or “BBQ” is the most widely accepted way to spell it here in Australia. The word “Barbeque” is thought to derived from a french term barbe à queue (translation: “beard to tail”) which refers to a whole hog being roasted.
that Australians use for food. You will hear this word used a lot in more in country towns compared to the city. “I'm really hungry, I can't wait to get some tucker.”
BBQ History – the origin of the word barbecue
The explorers came across the indigenous Taino people who cooked their meat on a raised grill over the fire and the Spanish called it barbacoa. Translated to English barbacoa means barbecue.
In Australia, barbecuing is a popular summer pastime, often referred to as a "barbie". Traditional meats cooked are lamb chops, beef steak, and sausages (colloquially known as "snags").
"Better Be Quick." Sometimes, the abbreviation BBQ is used to indicate that the sender wishes something to be done without delay.
dunny – a toilet, the appliance or the room – especially one in a separate outside building. This word has the distinction of being the only word for a toilet which is not a euphemism of some kind. It is from the old English dunnykin: a container for dung. However Australians use the term toilet more often than dunny.
The term "esky" is also commonly used in Australia to generically refer to portable coolers or ice boxes and is part of the Australian vernacular, in place of words like "cooler" or "cooler box" and the New Zealand "chilly bin". The term derives from the word "Eskimo".
Definition. In Australia, chips can refer to 'hot' chips; fried strips of potato. Chips also refer to what are known in other countries as crisps.
“When you barbecue you are cooking with a slow circumvented unit of hot air with the lid closed. Grilling is done with the lid up and you're cooking with direct heat on the bottom, instead of all around the source. “You grill a steak and you barbecue a pork butt.”
Barbecuing cooks food slowly and often incorporates sauces or marinades. It infuses a smoky taste and makes food extra tender. Meanwhile, grilling cooks ingredients quickly and is normally done with very little oil, resulting in that crispy, charred, caramelized surface and those picture-perfect grill marks.
While the standard modern English spelling of the word is barbecue, variations including barbeque and truncations such as bar-b-q or BBQ may also be found. The spelling barbeque is given in Merriam-Webster and the Oxford Dictionaries as a variant.
Let's start with one of the most famous Australian slang phrases: 'No worries'. It's said to be the national motto of Australia. This expression means “do not worry about it”, or “it's all right”.
Unlike the traditional Australian BBQ, The Braai is an open-fire concept using wood, charcoal or heat beads to achieve aromas and flavours that will tantalise your senses.
Naur is literally just the phonetic spelling of the word “no” in an Australian accent, which has become a playful way to mock the nasal, drawn-out sounds of an Aussie speaking. As mentioned above, the word naur was already in everyone's minds from the lingering H20 Challenge trend on TikTok.
5. Sheila = Girl. Yes, that is the Australian slang for girl.
Contributor's comments: "Hoover" often used for vacuuming in my youth, in Canberra and Sydney. Contributor's comments: Not of any particular region. The origin of the word "Hoover" of course is from the most common, if not first brand of vacuun cleaner when they first appeared as a household item.
Fella. Bloke. Dude.
The shoe known in Australia as a “thong” is one of the oldest styles of footwear in the world. Worn with small variations across Egypt, Rome, Greece, sub-Saharan Africa, India, China, Korea, Japan and some Latin American cultures, the shoe was designed to protect the sole while keeping the top of the foot cool.
Aussie Word of the Week
Underdaks, also called underchunders or underdungers, is a colloquial name for your underpants. Daks are trousers, therefore underdaks must logically be underwear. Simple.
One of the most infamous Australian idiosyncrasies is the word for flip flop: the 'thong'.
A grill, as everybody also knows, is a thing, what some people erroneously call a barbecue. It can be found indoors or outdoors. It can burn propane or natural gas or charcoal or electricity. It can also be an adjective.
“BBQ” is just the abbreviation for the word, developed from the sounds of the word. It's not wrong, but it's also not a full word; it's a shortened version of one, similar to how “lbs” is an abbreviation for “pounds.” (Though how those letters became the abbreviation for “pounds” is a story all its own.)
Aussie Word of the Week
Aussies have a plethora of names for sausages and the ways and contexts in which we eat them. Snag is perhaps the most famous slang term for sausages, followed closely by banger. Many of us grab a sausage sanga down at the local hardware store.