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bogan


unsophisticated, flanno wearing afficionado of moccasins (moccas): Shazza is a bogan! Compare bevan, bog2, chigger, booner, boonie, feral, westie.

Editor's comments: Does this word have anything to do with the town of Bogan in NSW?

Contributor's comments: Bogan is also widely used throughout Tasmania.

Contributor's comments: Bogan is a common term in Perth also. Specially in the 80's. Still plenty of bogans to be found over here!!

Contributor's comments: Also used in W.A. a young bogan or the little brother of a bogan was known as a barry.

Contributor's comments: I believe that this word was used extensively in the Comedy Company shows that ran during the 80's, and hence has wide exposure in all of Australia. Although whether the show was the originator of the word, I do not know.

Contributor's comments: The word "bogan" is used throughout Brisbane, but "bevan" is more common.

Contributor's comments: Used in Brisbane. e.g. I'm sure I've heard Savage Garden referred to as "The Bogans from Logan" (just south of Brisbane).

Contributor's comments: This word is also used in Western Australia - Perth region. I think it came into use more recently, and earlier the word 'bog' was used to mean pretty much the same thing. Perth bogans aren't known for wearing moccassins, just Ugg Boots. (Mulletts are still common).

Contributor's comments: Bogan is also used in Perth and has the same meaning, with the added bonus of meaning a complete idiot.

Contributor's comments: Also known as 'booner' in the ACT.

Contributor's comments: Bogan is also commonly used in Adelaide.

Contributor's comments: Used in WA since at least the late 70s.

Contributor's comments: Never heard this word used in New England. As a kid in Tamworth we always used the word westie.

Contributor's comments: Bogan is also used in Western Australia, sometimes shortened to 'bog' (rhymes with log). Besides the flanny shirt, they also tend to wear 'spray-on' (very tight) black jeans and have mullet haircuts. Often also wear thongs (double pluggers) with them, black knitted beanies also popular in cold weather.

Contributor's comments: Bogan is DEFINITELY a Tasmanian word. Used a lot there!

Contributor's comments: "Bogan" is used, @ least in SE Perth, for male youth wearing checked shirt, mullet haircut, jeans, riple-soled black desert boots, with the arms of a sweater tied around the mid-riff, so that the sweater covers the backside. Usually from lower socio-economic group.

Contributor's comments: Bogun (as it is spelt here) is commonly used by Tasmanian school children today - it has replaced the word "chiggers" amongst young people. Graffiti in Hobart makes the plea "let boguns be boguns".

Contributor's comments: "Bogan" is used in South Australia too.

Contributor's comments: Bogan is also the term commonly used in SA.

Contributor's comments: This word was used very often in WA during my school days to refer to boys who wore denim or black jeans, black desert boots and black tshirt with a flannelette shirt over the top.

Contributor's comments: Bogan as a term is also heavily used in Tasmania. Also, in Canberra it is slightly changed to the word "Booner".

Contributor's comments: I think Bogan is not used much in NSW, but is definitely used in WA.

Contributor's comments: Bogan is less widely used in Sydney and Canberra than in Melbourne. I believe that the word came to Sydney/Canberra via TV shows such as the Comedy Company.

Contributor's comments: I've only ever heard of "bogan" being used by Victorians - in Sydney the same sense is expressed by the word "westie".

Contributor's comments: This word is used in SA also.

Contributor's comments: In Adelaide, I never heard the word "bogan" until it started filtering through from other states (via TV) in the late '80's. Before then the Adelaide equivalent of bogan was just "person".


Contributor's comments: In the Upper Hunter Valley NSW we have never heard of this word. I think our equivalent is a "dag" or "hommie".

Contributor's comments: W.A. Bogans in the 1980s tended to listen to Heavy Metal music, eg AC/DC, Def Lepard, etc. Also often wear black T-shirts advertising these bands.

Contributor's comments: Sydneysiders prefer to use "westie".

Contributor's comments: [ACT informant] An unattractive young male: "He is such a bogan."

Contributor's comments: [Perth informant] Bogun, pronounced, bow (eg long bow) gun, a daggy sort of person, the type that swims at Cottesloe Beach wearing black jeans, and thinks that's cool. This may be a late 70's early 80's saying. I'm not sure that it is in common parlance anymore. I have got to say that bogun is not a word that has been in my common vocabulary recently. It is a term on a similar par to dag, almost a term of affection, about someone who is a bit behind the 8 ball, of the the basics of fashion. The typical bogun is suburban and a bit of a dick-head.

Contributor's comments: I'd like to know the collective noun for bogans. Any suggestions?

Contributor's comments: In Hobart prior to the latter 80's the term was always Chigger referring to people from Chigwell. They didn't wear moccosans (that look was never really in here), maybe Ug boots but mostly desert boots (or "poof boots" as in PB Rollers). They also wore flannel shirts (of flannies). My brother was a chigger and so were all his mates.

Contributor's comments: Kiwis claim bogan as their own, particularly Wellingtonians. People living in Upper Hut are often referred to as bogans. I wonder if the phase was brought across the Tasman Sea with/by the Kiwis now living in Australia.

Editor's comments: Actually, Harry Orsman's "Oxford Dictionary of New Zealand English" list bogan as a "recent borrowing" from Australia. First recorded in NZ in 1992, first recorded in Australia in 1988. Nice try, but.

Contributor's comments: The word Bogan was not used in Adelaide prior to the 1980s. I am not aware of any regional equivalent.

Contributor's comments: 'Bogan' is also used in Sydney. In the NW suburbs we use it to refer to those living north of Hornsby, in 'the sticks'. Not used in a general way for people living there, but it kind of forms the north-of-city equivalent of 'westie' for Sydney. Bogans tend to be particularly fond of bonfires and bomb cars.

Contributor's comments: [Tasmanian informant] Delinquent, mostly illiterate, foul mouthed, alcoholic who most likely drives something that isn't road worthy, has a malfunctioning muffler, has at least one broken light and a terrible paint job. They would also be likely to have not finished a senior secondary education and would belong to low socio-economic group.

Contributor's comments: Clothing features of a WA bogan include tight black shirt with person's name in those plastic iron letters and a ciggie pack tucked into one sleeve.

Contributor's comments: Bogun and Booner were extensively used in the ACT. As I came from Belconnen, boguns were from Charnwood (a medium-density suburb). The fellas wore flannie shirts and mullets.

Contributor's comments: Have heard 'bogan' used in Melbourne.

Contributor's comments: [from the UK] A friend who emigrated to Australia introduced my friends and I to this word over in England. Don't think it has become very widespread even with the amount of Aussie soaps and backpackers over here, but among my circle of friends it's a well-used term. Usually delivered in the style of Alf from Home & Away i.e "ya flamin' bogan".

Contributor's comments: The word 'bogan' is related to the word Dubbo, meaning someone who is a simpleton or country hick. The term bogan is related to those people who live 'west' of the Bogan River at Nyngan in NSW and they were considered even more slow and simple than a Dubbo, some one who lived in the Central West of NSW.

Contributor's comments: I remember bogan being used in the late 70's/early 80's in Ballarat schools. It was picked up by "The Comedy Company" and exported to all of Aust/NZ. We used it in Ballarat to describe the inhabitants of Wendouree West who were always picking their noses in school. Hence, bogeys, boges, bogans. Still called "Boges" in Ballarat.

Contributor's comments: [Melbourne informant] I first heard bogan in Melbourne in the mid to late 1970s, previously bogans were known as "moccasin people" on account of their favoured footwear and occasionally as scozzers, with scozz as the adjective e.g. "look at that scozz car", but scozzer was entirely replaced by bogan. Westies were the Sydney version of bogans - the uniform is as every one says, tight jeans, moccys, flannel shirt or blank band t-shirt and of course the mullett.

Contributor's comments: A Bogan is very common in the new millenium, especially in and around the Bunbury-Perth area. Another aspect characterising flanno wearing, mullet-cut, men who think low-class styles from the 80's is cool, is their love of VK Commodores and such aging Holden and Ford cars.

Contributor's comments: A slang term to describe working class citizens. They are characterised by tight, black jeans, flannelette shirts, black, rubber thongs and a mullet haircut. Other characteristics include driving VK Commodores, drinking VB, listening to Jimmy Barnes or AC/DC, and having an obsession with aging Ford and Holden motor vehicles. Bogan is a Western Australian term and was put into use after people stopped referring to such people as 'Yobo's': "Have you noticed that bogan's have mullets?"

Contributor's comments: This word is used to interchangably with 'Bevan' (Qld) represent a person that is in someway derelict or rough around the edges: "Look at those Bogons over there."

Contributor's comments: Similar to bevan: "That's where the bogans hang out."

Contributor's comments: A Bogan is someone who, wares Fubo, Dada and Wutan, commonly called Fubu-Claners. Its not just flannelette shirts that make people Bogans.

Contributor's comments: Growing up in Ballarat in the 70's and 80's, this word was very commonly used. The word 'skozza' was also used interchangeably. A mate of mine incurred huge social stigma by deliberately cultivating a mullett, buying the uniform (flannie, faberge jeans and suede 'rollers' as footwear. He was trying to deliberately BECOME a bogan, instead of growing up one...

Contributor's comments: We used Bogan extensively in Sorrigo, northern NSW, to describe dags in similar fashion to 'westie' in Sydney. I suspect an earlier comment about the Comedy Company's influence may be right - my memory of the term is as a teenager in the 1980s.

Contributor's comments: A real Melbourne term, I remember having to explain it to a housemate new from Sydney. It seemed to emerge in the 80s and was initially used by people who'd gone to private schools to refer to people who hadn't. The word has broadened now to refer to uncouth, uncultured "awful Australian" types - moccas, mullets, cheap hairstreaks, acidwash jeans (80s) or muffin-tops, "youse"-sayers.

Contributor's comments: Having lived in Sydney, Canberra, regional NSW and now Brisbane, I can confirm that many younger people in Brisbane have never heard of the word Bogan. In Canberra, Bogan and Booner was used. Booner being the more derogative of the two. My family in Sydney refer to Bogan as the term Westies use to describe other Westies. Bevan seems to be more popular in Brisbane but there isn't a specific term for a bogan.