larrikin

Jul. 28th, 2022 06:55 am
prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (Default)
[personal profile] prettygoodword
Okay, I'm dealing with another dialect's slang here, so I may get this wrong -- please correct as needed. But as a Larry, I had to represent.


larrikin (LAR-i-kin) - n., (Aus. slang) a good-natured but wild-spirited non-conformist.


The original sense, back in the 1870s, was closer to a hoodlam or a rowdy, but this morphed early/mid-20th century -- though that said, dictionaries that focus on American dialects of English still only give that older sense. As slang, the origin's unknown and there's a lot of hypotheses about it, and have been since it first popped up, including a West County dialect of England, alteration of larking, leery kin meaning a prisoner, and a clearly made-up folk etymology involving a guy named Larry.

---L.

Date: 2022-07-28 02:36 pm (UTC)
minoanmiss: A detail of the Ladies in Blue fresco (Default)
From: [personal profile] minoanmiss
ahahhahaheee

Date: 2022-07-30 02:28 am (UTC)
mific: (Default)
From: [personal profile] mific
We have it in NZ as well, although it's archaic now.

Date: 2022-07-30 03:32 pm (UTC)
lokifan: black Converse against a black background (Default)
From: [personal profile] lokifan
Cute!

March 2026

S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 567
8 9 10 11 12 1314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031    

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Mar. 14th, 2026 05:14 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios