must have killed a Chinaman

English

Etymology

Referring to a putative, and otherwise unrecorded, Anglo-Australian superstition that killing a Chinese person brought about bad luck.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Phrase

must have killed a Chinaman

1. (Australia, dated, now offensive) A jocular explanation for bad luck.
   • 1925, L. M. Newton, The Story of the Twelfth: A Record of the 12th Battalion, page 132:

     It appeared as though someone in the Battalion must have killed a Chinaman, as the weather continued rough and stormy, with strong wind.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:must have killed a Chinaman.

References

• Eric Partridge (2005) “must have killed a Chinaman”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volumes 2 (J–Z), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 393.
• “I must have killed a Chinaman”, entry in A Dictionary of Catch Phrases: British and American, from the sixteenth century to the present day, Eric Partridge & Paul Beale, page 218