back-blocks

Dictionary of Australasian Words Phrases and Usages by Edward E. Morris

n.


1) The far interior ofAustralia, and away from settled country. Land in Australia isdivided on the survey maps into blocks, a word confined, inEngland and the United States, to town lands.

2) The parts of a station distant from the frontage (q.v.).

1872. Anon. `Glimpses of Life in Victoria,' p. 31:

«. . . we were doomed to see the whole of our river-frontagepurchased. . . . The back blocks which were left to us wereinsufficient for the support of our flocks, and deficient inpermanent water-supply. . . .»

1880. J. Mathew, Song – – `The Bushman':

«Far, far on the plains of the arid back-blocks

A warm-hearted bushman is tending his flocks.

There's little to cheer in that vast grassy sea:

But oh! he finds pleasure in thinking of me.

How weary, how dreary the stillness must be!

But oh! the lone bushman is dreaming of me.»

1890. E. W. Horning, `A Bride from the Bush,' p. 298:

«`Down in Vic' you can carry as many sheep to the acre as acresto the sheep up here in the `backblocks.'»

1893. M. Gaunt, `English Illustrated, `Feb., p. 294:

«The back-blocks are very effectual levellers.»

1893. Haddon Chambers, `Thumbnail Sketches of AustralianLife,' p. 33

«In the back-blocks of New South Wales he had known both hungerand thirst, and had suffered from sunstroke.»

1893. `The Australasian,' Aug. 12, p. 302, col. 1:

«Although Kara is in the back-blocks of New South Wales, theclothes and boots my brother wears come from Bond Street.»

Dictionary of Australasian Words Phrases and Usages by Edward E. Morris

← babbler   ×   back-block →

Related Words