must have killed a Chinaman
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Referring to a putative, and otherwise unrecorded, Anglo-Australian superstition that killing a Chinese person brought about bad luck.
Pronunciation[edit]
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Phrase[edit]
- (Australia, dated, now offensive) A jocular explanation for bad luck.
- 1925, L. M. Newton, The Story of the Twelfth: A Record of the 12th Battalion, page 132:
- It appeared as though someone in the Battalion must have killed a Chinaman, as the weather continued rough and stormy, with strong wind.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:must have killed a Chinaman.
References[edit]
- Eric Partridge (2005) “must have killed a Chinaman”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume 2 (J–Z), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 393.
- “I must have killed a Chinaman”, entry in A Dictionary of Catch Phrases: British and American, from the sixteenth century to the present day, Eric Partridge & Paul Beale, page 218