Meaning of larrikinism | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The behaviour of larrikins (hooligans); impertinent and disrespectful behaviour.
   Australia, New-Zealand, uncountable
2. Behaviour that is rebellious against and contemptuous of authority and convention.
   Australia, uncountable

Examples

“I would have⟳ thrashed him well at the start⟳ but for the letters I constantly received from home warning me against giving offence to the parents, and knew that to set⟳ my foot on the children's larrakinism would require⟳ measures that would gain⟳ their mother's ill-will at once.”

“The apparent decline⟳ of larrikinism in Sydney in the late 1890s provides a specific illustration of the ambiguous relation between official policies, socioeconomic change⟳, and change⟳ in deviant behavior.”

“Good quality homes promised deliverance from the problems of illegitimacy, divorce, larrikinism, wife-desertion, general immorality and crime.”

“Neither Menzies nor Fraser made any attempt⟳ to wield the imagery of the legend, and Gorton's larrikinism made him unfit to hold⟳ high office in the eyes of Liberal Party powerbrokers.”

“The sense⟳ of independence and loyalty remained, though the humour, irreverence, and “larrikinism”, core qualities of the digger identity that appeared so strongly in social protests throughout the war, were hidden within a new encompassing sense⟳ of respect⟳ and remorse, and a new identity in the “Anzac”.”

“The AIF's bad characters became transmuted in popular memory into at worst merely mischievous larrikins. Since larrikinism was a common response of young Australian men to life, let⟳ alone war, the image has been easy to accept⟳. But as we have⟳ seen, the AIF's behaviour went beyond mere larrikinism, and it seems time to acknowledge that fact.”

CEFR level