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/məˈtɪldə/ · noun
(Australia) A bundle of possessions, often tied up in a sack; a swag..
1906, A. B. Paterson, On The Road to Gundagai, The Old Bush Songs, Gutenberg eBook #10493, In a week the spree was over and the cheque was all knocked down, / So we shouldered our “Matildas,” and we turned our backs on town, / And the girls they stood a nobbler as we sadly said “Good bye,” / And we tramped from Lazy Harry’s, not five miles from Gundagai;
When a hobo roams through the outback with a matilda on his back, he is said to be “waltzing matilda.”
Use matilda when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Matilda means (Australia) A bundle of possessions, often tied up in a sack; a swag..
The closest synonym depends on the sentence and intended sense.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
1906, A. B. Paterson, On The Road to Gundagai, The Old Bush Songs, Gutenberg eBook #10493, In a week the spree was over and the cheque was all knocked down, / So we shouldered our “Matildas,” and we turned our backs on town, / And the girls they stood a nobbler as we sadly said “Good bye,” / And we tramped from Lazy Harry’s, not five miles from Gundagai;
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