Meaning of wharfie | Babel Free

Definitions

A wharf worker: synonym of dockworker.

Australia, New-Zealand, colloquial, informal

Equivalents

Examples

““It’s a twenty-four-hour stoppage,” he said. “The wharfies went to the Arbitration Court for another pound a week for something or other, and they didn’t get⟳ it, so they’ve stopped work⟳ for a day to show⟳ their displeasure […]””

“One night, soon after the battle of the Coral Sea, the US transport⟳ ship Shenandoah steamed up the Brisbane River to the wharves at Hamilton. She tied up just before eleven o′clock and at midnight a fresh shift of wharfies began unloading her cavernous holds.”

“But a group of wharfies rushed the ballot box, opened it, and ripped up some voting slips and threw others over a fence.”

“In Fremantle the wharfies were crucial to my preselection. Gordon Harris was the secretary of the Fremantle wharfies, and we got on amicably until he decided to stand⟳ against me in 1958.”

CEFR level