Larrikin

Quick meaning: Larrikin is a noun meaning (by extension, Australia, slang) A high-spirited person who playfully rebels against authority and conventional norms; a maverick or scamp.

Meaning

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

More Meanings

1. (Australia, slang) Exhibiting the behaviour or characteristics of a larrikin (noun sense).
2. (Australia, New Zealand, slang, historical) A young, brash, and impertinent, and possibly violent, troublemaker, especially one who is a gang member; a hooligan.

Example Sentences

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

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, […]

Come, sir, if he’s been cursed to hell, why don’t you bless him back again? What’s the good of your blessings if they can’t beat an Irish larrykin’s curse?

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.

Word Forms

• larrikins
• larikin
• larrykin

Synonyms for larrikin

Depending on context, synonyms include larry, eccentric, heteroclite, individualist, maverick, misfit.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include larrikinism, larikin, larrykin, larrikiness, lairiser, rorter.

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