bodgie

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English

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Etymology

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From bodg(er) +‎ -ie.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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bodgie (plural bodgies)

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) A member of a 1950s rock subculture; a teddy boy. [from 20th c.]
    Hyponym: milk-bar cowboy
    • 1965, Mudrooroo, Wild Cat Falling, HarperCollins, published 2001, page 17:
      I comb my hair as best I can. It is in a crew-cut ordered by the chief warder. He must have read that bodgies wear their hair long and decided to do his bit in the fight against juvenile delinquency.
    • 1993, Lesley Johnson, The Modern Girl: Girlhood and Growing Up[1], page 100:
      Unlike McDonald, Manning noted with dismay that traditional relations between the sexes were broken down in bodgie groups. Bodgies, he argued, were disturbed youth, hooligans, maladjusted.
    • 2001, Roy Shuker, Understanding Popular Music[2], page 223:
      The New Zealand public and press largely shared his view of bodgies as juvenile delinquents who posed a social threat. The bodgie soon became a national bogey man, with alarmist newspaper reports about bodgie behaviour.
    • 2010, William Stokes, Westbrook[3], page 183:
      In Toowoomba, Magistrate Kearney was up in arms over the bodgies and widgies in town – those dressed-up teenagers with their spruced hair and polka-dot dresses who loitered around the city streets. They were seen as a threat to society.

Synonyms

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Coordinate terms

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