Meaning of larrikin | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A young, brash, and impertinent, and possibly violent, troublemaker, especially one who is a gang member; a hooligan.
   Australia, New-Zealand, historical, slang
2. A high-spirited person who playfully rebels against authority and conventional norms; a maverick or scamp.
   Australia, broadly, slang

Equivalents

Examples

“To keep me out of trouble I was sent to the wood-gang Cascade an out station about two miles from headquarters. On arriving at this place the following dialogue passed between me and the overseer: […] "A bit of a larrikin, T——, but it won't do here, you know." "No odds about that—what's the work?"”

“I wish to call your attention to the annoyance foot passengers are subject to by the ill-behaviour and disgraceful conduct exhibited by the larrikins, and also from men (who ought to know better), who infest the market reserve for the purpose of disposing of their wood, and who, until they do so, are the cause of the annoyance above referred to, which I suppose they would term amusing themselves. The rows and fights which they betimes indulge in, accompanied by some of the foulest and most blasphemous language, frequently to passers-by, and also the obstruction of the footpath, ought to attract the attention of those at whose hands the remedy lies.”

“How dare you talk to me like that, you young larrikin? Be off! or I'll send for a policeman.”

“The reputation of the Melbourne larrikin was world wide, the larrikin being the forerunner of the hooligan. Law and education had failed to reform these larrikins, and at last some of the citizens hit on the method of forming cadet corps, which had proved to be a conspicuous success, and larrikinism was now dead; the streets of Melbourne knew it no more as a real source of terror.”

“Flagstaff Hill [in Dunedin] is a hill without a flagstaff. […] Another man told me there never had been a staff on the hill; but if there had been, perhaps larrikins would have removed it. For larrikinism is one of the evils of New Zealand. Everywhere there one hears of the larrikin, or young hoodlum. Larrikins are an unorganized, mischievous fraternity. They are always despoiling or marring public or private property or making people the butt of coarse jokes and jeers. If something is stolen, "the larrikins took it"; if windows or park seats are broken, "the larrikins did it."”

“Come, sir, if he’s been cursed to hell, why don’t you bless him back again? What’s the good of your blessings if they can’t beat an Irish larrykin’s curse?”

“Then the Wet Season came with its extremes of heat and humidity and depraving influences on the minds of corruptible men. Even Oscar began to drink to excess. But he never bawled and pranced and wallowed in mud and came home in the arms of shouting larrikins.”

“He [Robert Percy Whitworth] was one of the earliest writers to turn the city larrikin to literary account in a variation of the picaresque conte, […]”

“On all occasions Captain Smith's military character was good, though he was always a bit of a larrikin, and had a way of practical joking.”

“When [Frank] Browne's turn came, he went down like a true larrikin, giving cheek to the end. He spoke eloquently and at length about freedom of speech.”

“From the moment he had become opposition leader following the defeat of Lindsay Thompson's government in 1982, Jeff Kennett had been viewed as a political larrikin. […] To his defenders, Kennett was simply a brash and youthful leader seeking to energise the defeated Liberal Party and remove the "dead wood" from its ranks. Yet, to his many detractors, Jeff Kennett was shallow and reckless with a propensity for silly and embarrassing gaffes.”

CEFR level