pancrack

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

pancrack (uncountable)

1. (UK, slang) Social security, especially as paid to the unemployed; the dole.
   • 1971, Delta: A Literary Review from Cambridge, Issues 49-54, p. 38 (Google snippet view):

     It is Pancrack day or so they call it. Dole money or social security which is often more for those who have done no work at all . . . .

   • 1982, Pat Barker, Union Street, →ISBN:

     She had saved it out of her social security money: the "pancrack" as she contemptuously called it.

   • 2012, Roy Chubby Brown, chapter 6, in Common As Muck, →ISBN:

     "I'll go on the pancrack," I told the foreman, but when I got to the dole office they told me I wouldn't need to sign on.

Synonyms

• dole, pogey (Canada)