bodgie

English

Etymology

From bodg(er) +‎ -ie.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

bodgie (plural bodgies)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) A member of a 1950s rock subculture; a teddy boy. [from 20th c.]

   Hyponym: milk-bar cowboy

   • 1965, Mudrooroo, Wild Cat Falling, HarperCollins, published 2001, page 17:

     I comb my hair as best I can. It is in a crew-cut ordered by the chief warder. He must have read that bodgies wear their hair long and decided to do his bit in the fight against juvenile delinquency.

   • 1993, Lesley Johnson, The Modern Girl: Girlhood and Growing Up‎^[1], page 100:

     Unlike McDonald, Manning noted with dismay that traditional relations between the sexes were broken down in bodgie groups. Bodgies, he argued, were disturbed youth, hooligans, maladjusted.

   • 2001, Roy Shuker, Understanding Popular Music‎^[2], page 223:

     The New Zealand public and press largely shared his view of bodgies as juvenile delinquents who posed a social threat. The bodgie soon became a national bogey man, with alarmist newspaper reports about bodgie behaviour.

   • 2010, William Stokes, Westbrook‎^[3], page 183:

     In Toowoomba, Magistrate Kearney was up in arms over the bodgies and widgies in town – those dressed-up teenagers with their spruced hair and polka-dot dresses who loitered around the city streets. They were seen as a threat to society.

Synonyms

• (member of 50s rock subculture): greaser (US), rocker (British)

Coordinate terms

• widgie (female)