English

Noun

bludger ‎(plural bludgers)

1. (Australia, slang, obsolete) A pimp, a man living off the earnings of a harlot. ^[3][From 1856.]
   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, Chapter VII, p. 106,

     Oscar pondered for a while, then said, "Oh, but halfcastes don't seem to be any good at all. All the men here are loafers and bludgers, the women practically all whores."

   • 1997, Barbara Ann Sullivan, The Politics of Sex: Prostitution and Pornography in Australia since 1945, page 30,

     This was the bludger or, in American parlance, the pimp, a man who lived on the earnings of prostitution. He was often the husband or boyfriend of a prostitute and could be actively involved in protecting or touting for the prostitute. Parliamentarians described the bludger as ‘the most detestable wretch on the face of the earth’ and as a man ‘worthy of no respect whatsoever’ (NSWPD 31:1675).

2. (Australia, New Zealand, slang, derogatory) A person who avoids working, or doing their share of work, a loafer, a hanger-on, one who does not pull their weight. [From 1919.]
   • 2005, Australian House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates: House of Representatives: Official Hansard, Volume 270, page 84,

     If she is doing the work of two parents because her husband has died or left her or is violent and has driven her and the kids from home, then suddenly she is a bludger.

Derived terms

• dole bludger

Related terms

• bludge

See also

• freeloader
• free rider

Anagrams

• burgled

References

1. ↑ “bludger”, entry in Online Etymology Dictionary
2. ↑ "bludger", entry in 2009, Susan Butler, The Dinkum Dictionary: The Origins of Australian Words, page 31—Originally the ‘bludger’ was the lowest of the low because he was a man who lived on the earnings of a prostitute. He protected these earnings by his use of a bludgeon—‘bludger’ is a shortened form of ‘bludgeoner’. Although ‘bludgeoner in this sense was known in the mid-1800s in British English, the specific meaning of pimp seems to have developed in Australian English and been current up to the 1950s.
3. ↑ 1966, Sidney J. Baker, The Australian Language, second edition, chapter VI, section 3, page 129—mentions an 1882 record of the "pimp" usage