We’ve got a sugar rush of Aussie slang for you to chew on, so sit down and unwrap this week’s Word of the Week.
A lolly is a sweet or piece of confectionery. Particular to Australia and New Zealand, lolly has been part of Aussie slang since the 1850s. A conversation lolly is a sugary lolly with a conversational, often romantic, sentiment impressed into it. These have been part of the Aussie diet since the 1890s. Lolly water is a carbonated soft drink and sometimes used to refer to cordial.
If this blog is getting too sickly sweet for you, good news, there are a few non-sugar related uses of lolly in Aussie slang. Lolly can mean money or dosh, as in I’m running out of lolly. It can also refer to your head: to do your lolly is to lose your temper.
Lolly legs can be either long, skinny legs, or, a tall, lanky person with long legs, while lolly bags is a synonym for speedos. We’ll leave that one up to your imagination.
Each week, we have a look at a slang word from Australian English. You can see other Aussie Word of the Week posts from the Macquarie Dictionary here.
