jackaroo
To work as a jackaroo.
Noun
- A white man living outside of a white settlement.
Coordinate Terms: jillaroo
- A trainee station manager or owner, working as a stockman or farm hand; formerly, a young man of independent means working at a station in a supernumerary capacity to gain experience.
- But this is the tale of a Jackaroo that came from a foreign strand, / And the fight that he fought with Saltbush Bill, the King of the Overland. - 1895, A. B. Paterson, Saltbush Bill: The Man from Snowy River and Other...
- A Jackeroo lived, as a kind of gentleman apprentice, in the squatter′s or manager′s homestead, not in the men′s huts; but most of his daily work was done side by side with the working ‘hands’. - 1964, Russel Braddock...
- Frequently the overseer would come to me and say a certain jackeroo was useless, and would never be any good, when the boy had only just started. - 1974, The Pastoral Review, volume 84, page 611:
Origin
Obscure. Possibly from an Aboriginal term meaning wandering white man.
Forms
Verb
- To work as a jackaroo.
- Bill has gone jackarooing out west.