flax-stick

English

Alternative forms

• flax stick

Pronunciation

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Noun

flax-stick (plural flax-sticks)

1. (New Zealand) The flowering stem of the New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax or Phormium cookianum).
   • 1869, W. Lauder Lindsay, On the Economical Value and Applications of the Leaf-Fibre of New Zealand Flax (Phormium tenax, Forst.), The Journal of Botany, British and Foreign, Volume 7, page 46,

     Rafts, or canoes, or “catamarans,” are still occasionally improvised by travellers or explorers in primitive parts of New Zealand, e.g. by Haast, who reports constructing “catamarans” of dead trees when flax-sticks were not obtainable.

2. (Australia, slang, obsolete) A New Zealander.
   • 1896, Henry Lawson, “His Country–After All”, in While the Billy Boils, Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus and Robertson […], →OCLC, page 51:

     "I always thought Australia was all good country," mused the driver—a flax-stick.