Meaning of homeward bounder | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A vessel making a return trip to its home port or home country.
2. A person making a return trip to their home country.
3. A roughly executed stitch used when repairing articles of clothing on a vessel nearing the end of a long voyage.
4. A goldmine which is highly productive, making the owners rich enough to abandon mining and return to their home country.
   Australia, obsolete

Examples

“Here are outward bounders, and homeward bounders, apparently just about to run over each other in every direction[.]”

“In this way a fine homeward bounder, called the Junior, bound to Aberdeen from Callao, laden with a valuable cargo, caught the shore about eight or nine miles to the westward of Boulogne.”

“"I should suppose," he went on, "that she's a homeward-bounder; from India, say, now?"”

“A homeward-bounder should certainly keep to the westward.”

“Ring on the homeward bounders, HMAS Sydney (CMDR Michael Van Balen) is coming home.”

“[advert] WANTED, to Sell to Homeward-bounders, a splendid King PARROT and Cedar CAGE, £2 10s.”

“He now expressed his regret, and said he was a homeward-bounder, and was to be paid on April 23.”

“I had bought a seventh of the Billy go Lightly from a homeward-bounder, paying £200 for it, and had seen my money back twice over, for though the reef was a tolerably hard one to work, it went well and was over a foot wide.”

“The Japanese were entirely responsible for the selection and accommodation of the homeward-bounders.”

“[D]o you for one moment believe that the ‘homeward bounders’ in Mrs. Faul's needlework was the head and front of Mr. Flannery's offending?”

“[S]he lifted a boot, drew up into the light an oilskin trouser-leg where it was patched — homeward bounders, every stitch of them — and said in a voice obdurate as flint, "Fifteen shillings."”

“Pete was in his dungarees with his ‘homeward bounder’ stitches over the many rents in great evidence, a coat, and, as usual, no shirt[.]”

“A rich hole is now known as a "homeward bounder," — a name expressive of pleasure to the winner of the prize, but of sinister significance to those who remain behind.”

“During the last week, I have endeavoured to ascertain if possible, the number of golden shafts that have been bottomed and up to the present time the very outside is forty (40), out of these, some thirteen (13) may styled "Jeweller's shops", or "homeward bounders", ten (10) first rate claims, and there remainder good payable ones.”

“[B]ut to their agreeable astonishment they only opened out a drive, when within two feet of their shaft they came across a reef averaging from two to three feet thick, and, to judge from the sample of stone they have got out for the last few days, they have got a homeward-bounder (to use a colonial phrase).”

“There is no longer any doubt but that many "homeward-bounder" claims exist on the rush, and that they are not confined to one part, but scattered in various directions.”

CEFR level