larrikin

English

WOTD – 26 January 2025

Etymology

Origin uncertain, possibly from *larick (Northern England) (an unattested variant of lark (“bird of the family Alaudidae; frolic or romp, some fun; prank; (East Suffolk, obsolete) unruly or wild person”, noun), from laverock (“(chiefly Northern England, Scotland, archaic) lark (bird)”); compare the variant forms lairock, larrock (chiefly Northern England), larick, larrick (chiefly Scotland)) + -kin (diminutive suffix). However, the Oxford English Dictionary notes that it is not clear why a word attested in the West Midlands (particularly Warwickshire and Worcestershire) and in Southeast England (Cornwall) would be derived from a word from Northern England.

Other suggestions include the following:

• The word is an Irish policeman’s pronunciation of larking (“engaging in careless adventure, frolicking; engaging in harmless pranking, sporting”), heard by a reporter in a Melbourne police court around 1870. The Oxford English Dictionary states there is no evidence of such an incident having been reported in the local newspapers of the time, and that in any case the word is attested earlier in Cornwall, England (since the early 19th century), and in Australia (at least from 1867: see the quotation).
• The first element of the word is from the name of an unknown Irishman named Larry.

The adjective is from an attributive use of the noun.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈlæɹɪk(ɪ)n/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈlɛɹəkən/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈlæɹək(ə)n/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: lar‧ri‧kin

Noun

larrikin (plural larrikins)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang, historical) A young, brash, and impertinent, and possibly violent, troublemaker, especially one who is a gang member; a hooligan.

   Synonyms: (Australia, archaic) larry, (Australia, archaic) lary

   • 1867 October 14 (date written), “The autobiography of a convict”, in The Empire, number 4,964, Sydney, N.S.W.: Samuel Bennett, published 16 October 1867, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 6, column 2:

     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?"

   • 1870 November 22, Pro Bono Publico [pseudonym], “The larrikin nuisance. To the editor of the Advertiser.”, in The Geelong Advertiser, number 7505, Geelong, Vic.: […] [F]or the proprietors by Alfred Douglass, […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 3, column 7:

     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.

   • 1896, Henry Lawson, “A Visit of Condolence”, in While the Billy Boils, Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus and Robertson […], →OCLC, page 209:

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

   • 1907 June 17, Guy Baring, “Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill”, in The Parliamentary Debates (Authorised Edition), Fourth Series, Second Session of the Twenty-eighth Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland […], volume CLXXVI, London: Wyman and Sons, […] [for] His Majesty’s Stationery Office, →OCLC, column 247:

     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.

   • 1913 October, [David] Paul Gooding, “Dunedin—Miscellaneous Ben Rudd and Flagstaff Hill—Roomy Invercargill—State Oysters—Romantic Stewart Island”, in Picturesque New Zealand, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company […], →OCLC, pages 170–171:

     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."

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, “Psychological Effect of a Solar Topee”, in Capricornia […], New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton-Century Company, published 1943, →OCLC, page 18:

     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.

   • 1953, Colin Roderick, “Biographical Notes”, in edited by Colin Roderick, Australian Round-up: Stories from 1790 to 1950, Sydney, N.S.W.; London: Angus and Robertson, →OCLC, page 345:

     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, […]

2. (by extension, Australia, slang) A high-spirited person who playfully rebels against authority and conventional norms; a maverick.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:maverick

   • 1881 August 18 (date delivered), [William Lodewyk] Crowther, “House of Assembly. Thursday, August 18. [The Volunteer Commission.]”, in The Tasmanian, volume X, number 34, Launceston, Tas.: [A]t the ‘Launceston Examiner’ Printing Office, […], by William Aikenhead, […], and by Henry Button, […], trading under the style or firm of Aikenhead and Button, published 20 August 1881, →OCLC, page 782, column 2:

     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.

   • 1988 August, Gavin Souter, “Lord Protector”, in Acts of Parliament: A Narrative History of the Senate and House of Representatives, Commonwealth of Australia, Carlton, Vic.: Brown Prior Anderson for Melbourne University Press, →ISBN, part 3 (Canberra 1850–1988), page 432:

     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.

   • 2006, Nick Economou, “Jeff Kennett: The Larrikin Metropolitan”, in Paul Strangio, Brian Costar, editors, The Victorian Premiers, 1856-2006, Leichhardt, N.S.W.: The Federation Press, →ISBN, page 363:

     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.

Alternative forms

• larikin, larrykin

Derived terms

• larrikiness (archaic)
• larrikinish
• larrikinism
• larry, lary (archaic)

Translations

young, brash, and impertinent, and possibly violent, troublemaker, especially one who is a gang member — see hooligan

high-spirited person who playfully rebels against authority and conventional norms

• Finnish: kapinallinen (fi), niskuri (fi)
• Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
• Maori: rarikena

Adjective

larrikin (comparative more larrikin, superlative most larrikin)

1. (Australia, slang) Exhibiting the behaviour or characteristics of a larrikin (noun sense).
   1. (historical) Of or relating to, or behaving like, a hooligan; hooliganistic, thuggish.
      • 1870 November 22, Pro Bono Publico [pseudonym], “The larrikin nuisance. To the editor of the Advertiser.”, in The Geelong Advertiser, number 7505, Geelong, Vic.: […] [F]or the proprietors by Alfred Douglass, […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 3, column 7:

        Hoping my letter will have the desired effect of removing the larrikin nuisance especially in such a central portion of the town, […]

      • 1947 August 18, “Editorial: The Vandal Streak”, in Alice Mabel Jackson, editor, The Australian Women’s Weekly, Sydney, N.S.W.: Consolidated Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 18, column 1:

        A similar larrikin streak sends louts into city parks to shy stones at monuments and chip noses of statuary.

      • 1953, Colin Roderick, “Biographical Notes”, in edited by Colin Roderick, Australian Round-up: Stories from 1790 to 1950, Sydney, N.S.W.; London: Angus and Robertson, →OCLC, page 352:

        […] [Edward] Dyson turned to the city, and in Fact'ry 'Ands (1906) concentrated upon the larrikin class which had developed in Melbourne since [Robert Percy] Whitworth first noted it.

      • [1961], A[lan] G[eorge] L[ewers] Shaw, “The Calm before the Storm”, in The Story of Australia, 2nd edition, London: Faber and Faber, →OCLC, page 148:

        ‘Larrikin gangs’ were a conspicuous feature of Sydney; and as a result of the selection acts, it was said, in the country perjury became a common-place in the lives of all.

      • 1995, Alistair Thomson, “A Crisis of Masculinity? Australian Military Manhood in the Great War”, in Joy Damousi, Marilyn Lake, editors, Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century (Studies in Australian History), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, part 2 (Masculinities), page 138:

        Despite his skills as a singer and storyteller, Percy [Bird] sometimes felt like an outsider among the diggers, excluded by his own ideal and practice of moral manhood from the more larrikin masculinity that he perceived to be predominant.

   2. (by extension) Playfully rebellious against and contemptuous of authority and convention; maverick.
      • 2002, Peter Craven, “Introduction”, in Peter Craven, editor, Quarterly Essay, volume 5, Melbourne, Vic.: Black Inc., Schwartz Publishing, →ISBN, →ISSN, →OCLC, page iii:

        Mungo [Wentworth] MacCallum is hardly typecast as the chronicler of the story of what has gone right and wrong about the business of immigration, regular and irregular, to this country but this most larrikin and cold-eyed of one-time Canberra chroniclers brings to this story all his wit and dryness and power of mind.

      • 2006, Allon J. Uhlmann, “Family and Gender, and Society at Large”, in Family, Gender and Kinship in Australia: The Social and Cultural Logic of Practice and Subjectivity (Anthropology and Cultural History in Asia and the Indo-Pacific), Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, →ISBN, page 151:

        Another area was occupied by a group of guests with a clearly more larrikin style, and who very much belonged to the dominated fraction. […] The language used was rather different (more 'crude' in the second one), clothing style was different too (less trendy, and much cheaper clothes in the second group), as was appearance in general (heavier tattoos in the second group, more people with bad teeth, more of the men with the working-class goatee) and the interaction was generally more boisterous.

      • 2006 September 5, Patrick Barkham, “‘It’s like a part of Australia has died’”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎^[1], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-07-06:

        "We're all a bit embarrassed by him [Steve Irwin]. He puts that image of Australia to the world – that larrikin attitude – and we're not all like that," says Milo Laing, 27, the manager of an Australian-themed bar on Shaftesbury Avenue. "But at the end of the day he did a lot of work for charities and he employed 550 people in his zoo. He grabbed life by the horns."

Translations

of or relating to, or behaving like, a hooligan — see thuggish

exhibiting the behaviour or characteristics of a larrikin — see maverick

Further reading

• larrikin on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• W. S. Ramson, editor (1988), “larrikin”, in The Australian National Dictionary: A Dictionary of Australianisms on Historical Principles, Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 361.
• Frederick Ludowyk, Bruce Moore, editors (2007), “larrikin, n.”, in The Australian Modern Oxford Dictionary, 3rd edition, Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 468, column 1.
• Melissa Bellanta (2013 April) “The Leary Larrikin”, in Ozwords‎^[2], volume 22, number 1, Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press in partnership with the Australian National Dictionary Centre, Australian National University, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-12-27, pages 1–3.