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