bludge
English edit
Etymology edit
Backformation from bludger.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
bludge (uncountable)
- (Australia, New Zealand, slang) The act of bludging.
- 2007, Anne Barry, Playing with Fire[1], page 136:
- A friend offered him a job working as a handyman in his carpet factory – a Mr Fix-it. Effectively off the bludge and back on track.
- (Australia, New Zealand, slang) Easy work.
- 1997, Wendy Morgan, Critical Literacy in the Classroom: The Art of the Possible[2], page 145:
- Oh, my name is Gecko and I just thought the whole unit was a bludge, sometimes it got really boring. But like I said I could just fall asleep and let my group members do all the work. And still almost pass.
- 2011, Irini Savvides, Sky Legs[3]:
- ‘Seriously, you′ve got sheep at school?’ I said.
‘Yeah, heaps of kids here do Ag. Reckon it′s a big bludge, like drama.’
Synonyms edit
- (easy work): doddle
Verb edit
bludge (third-person singular simple present bludges, present participle bludging, simple past and past participle bludged)
- (Australia, obsolete, slang) To live off the earnings of a prostitute.
- (Australia, New Zealand, slang) To not earn one's keep, to live off someone else or off welfare when one could be working.
- (Australia, New Zealand, slang) To avoid one's responsibilities; to leave it to others to perform duties that one is expected to perform.
- 1999, Tony Shillitoe, Joy Ride[4], page 64:
- The second last Thursday in first term of Year Nine, Jason and I bludged school for the first time together. It wasn't Jason's first time. He bludged school regularly, but I never used to miss days unless I was really sick.
- 2002, Donald Friend, edited by Anne Gray, The Diaries of Donald Friend, volume 1, page 343:
- One of the mess orderlies had consistently bludged on the rest of us all day.
- (Australia, New Zealand, slang) To do nothing, to be idle, especially when there is work to be done.
- 1967, New Zealand House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates[5], page 3164:
- We had the member for Piako saying as recently as last year, when dealing with social security benefits and increases, “I feel myself that when we have able-bodied men and women who would bludge and draw the pension, there is something wrong.”
- 1998, Marion Halligan, Rosanne Fitzgibbon, The gift of story: Three decades of UQP short stories, page 96:
- Now, you get back out there and you bludge! I don't want to see anyone working, OK? I don't want to see any pick-axes, any hammers, or nothing.
- 2004, John SmythRobert Hattamet al., ‘Dropping Out,’ Drifting Off, Being Excluded: Becoming Somebody Without School, page 53:
- I mean, school′s like a job. If you work for it you get your grades; if you work your hours you get your money. But if you bludge, you don't get money; if you bludge you don't get any grades. That's something that I didn't realize when I was young.
- (Australia, New Zealand, slang) To take some benefit and give nothing in return.
- Can I bludge a cigarette off you?
- 1983, Max Harris, The Unknown Great Australian and other psychobiographical portraits[6], page 105:
- Gabriel was a classic bludger. He was a drop-out in the very modern sense of the word. The Rossettis were anything but well-heeled. Solid old brother William kept the show on the road. Gabriel bludged on the family. He bludged on his mates.
- 2004, Gillian Cowlishaw, Blackfellas, Whitefellas, and the Hidden Injuries of Race[7], page 135:
- Now an adult with his own family, this man has become conscious of different norms among his children's white friends, and that whites often see sharing as bludging.
Synonyms edit
- (live off someone else): freeload, sponge
- (avoid one's responsibilities): shirk
- (be idle, do nothing): idle, laze, lounge
- (take without giving back): cadge, scrounge
Related terms edit
Translations edit
to live off the generosity of someone else
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