Westie

See also: westie

English

Alternative forms

• westie

Etymology

From west +‎ -ie.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛsti

Noun

Westie (plural Westies)

1. (informal) A West Highland White Terrier.
   • 1999, Dan Rice, The Dog Handbook‎^[1], page 139:

     Pet owners often trim their Westies with clippers and scissors to save expense.

   • 2007, Liz Palika, The Howell Book of Dogs‎^[2], page 383:

     A Westie fancier, Colonel Edward Malcolm, is said to have had a reddish-colored dog who was shot by hunters who mistook the dog for a fox.

   • 2010, Rebecca Paley, Dogs 101‎^[3], page 60:

     Westies may be small in stature but they have huge personalities.

2. (slang, derogatory) An inhabitant of the western suburbs of a city or town, stereotyped as of working class status and poor.
   1. (Australia) An inhabitant of the western suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne.
      • 1995, Barry Lowe, Media Mythologies, page 150:

        Take, for example, Sydney′s Westies, the inhabitants of the city′s much-maligned western suburbs.

      • 2001, Eugène Van Erven, Community Theatre: Global Perspectives, page 208:

        Being called a ‘Westie’ was (and is) regarded as an insult, although some Westies have now begun to proudly embrace the rich cultural identity the label also signifies.

      • 2004, Brian Carroll, Australia′s Prime Ministers: From Barton to Howard, page 313:

        Mark Latham had developed a reputation as something of a bovver boy Sydney Westie.

   2. (New Zealand) An inhabitant of the western suburbs of Auckland.

      For Aucklanders who know what it means, this person is a Westie. — [4]

      At least Bobs claims he's a Westie and he hasn't moved there as a social reject. — [5]

      • 2005, Gareth Shute, Making Music in New Zealand, page 16:

        He started singing for us ... and by then we were over the whole Westie party scene because it was too violent and agro and too many munters.

      • 2011, Trisha Dunleavy, Hester Joyce, New Zealand Film and Television: Institution, Industry and Cultural Change, page 199:

        Yet naming the family ‘West’ and locating them in working-class West Auckland marks Cheryl and her brood out as a family of ‘Westies’, this colloquial New Zealand term denoting an urban sub-culture mythologised as much for its rejection of middle-class aspirations and cultural capital as for its considered enjoyment of drinking, swearing, fighting and sex. Important to the universal appeal of Outrageous Fortune in New Zealand, however, is that contemporary ‘Westie’ culture is by no means confined to Auckland, with versions of it existing in proximate milieux throughout New Zealand.

      • 2012, Tim Shadbolt, A Mayor of Two Cities, unnumbered page:

        Around our westie bonfire, we all toasted our success. A large old television had been set up on the back porch and all the evening's results poured in from cities and districts all over New Zealand.

3. (slang, Contemporary Christian) An intense fan of the Christian singer Matthew West.

   The Westies in the crowd went wild when Matthew took the stage and sang Happy.

4. (US) A member of a criminal gang based in Hell's Kitchen on the west side of Manhattan.
   • 1982 April 12, Michael Daly, John Hamill, “The Ghosts Of Hell′s Kitchen”, in New York Magazine, page 40:

     Another killing was sparked when Tommy Hess, the bartender at Club 596, on Tenth Avenue, slapped the girl friend of a young Westie. […] Hess went on a list of some 60 homicides police say were committed by the Westies.

   • 1987 December, Peter Wilkinson, “Doing Business Broke”, in Spy, page 76:

     The Intrepid skim allegedly went from the union to a West Side gang of Irish toughs known as the Westies. (In an unrelated incident, several Westies are currently on trial for kidnapping, loan-sharking, extortion and murder. […] )

5. (slang, Canadian Military) A member of the Royal Westminster Regiment.

See also

• Scottie
• Yorkie

Anagrams

• Stewie