bludge

1. AustraliaNew ZealandslanguncountableThe act of bludging.

   A friend offered him a job working as a handyman in his carpet factory – a Mr Fix-it. Effectively off the bludge and back on track.

   2007, Anne Barry, Playing with Fire, page 136

2. AustraliaNew ZealandslanguncountableEasy work, especially a subject at school that requires little effort.

   ‘Seriously, you′ve got sheep at school?’ I said. ‘Yeah, heaps of kids here do Ag. Reckon it′s a big bludge, like drama.’

   2011, Irini Savvides, Sky Legs

   1 more example

   Oh, my name is Gecko and I just thought the whole unit was a bludge, sometimes it got really boring. But like I said I could just fall asleep and let my group members do all the work. And still almost pass.

   1997, Wendy Morgan, Critical Literacy in the Classroom: The Art of the Possible, page 145

   Synonyms: doddle

present singular third person bludges · participle present bludging · participle past bludged · past bludged

1. AustraliaobsoleteslangTo live off the earnings of a prostitute.
2. AustraliaNew ZealandslangTo not earn one's keep, to live off someone else or off welfare when one could be working.

   Synonyms: freeload, sponge

3. AustraliaNew ZealandslangTo avoid one's responsibilities; to leave it to others to perform duties that one is expected to perform.

   One of the mess orderlies had consistently bludged on the rest of us all day.

   2002, Donald Friend, edited by Anne Gray, The Diaries of Donald Friend, volume 1, page 343

   1 more example

   The second last Thursday in first term of Year Nine, Jason and I bludged school for the first time together. It wasn't Jason's first time. He bludged school regularly, but I never used to miss days unless I was really sick.

   1999, Tony Shillitoe, Joy Ride, page 64

   Synonyms: shirk

4. AustraliaNew ZealandslangTo do nothing, to be idle, especially when there is work to be done.

   Now, you get back out there and you bludge! I don't want to see anyone working, OK? I don't want to see any pick-axes, any hammers, or nothing.

   1998, Marion Halligan, Rosanne Fitzgibbon, The gift of story: Three decades of UQP short stories, page 96

   2 more examples

   We had the member for Piako saying as recently as last year, when dealing with social security benefits and increases, “I feel myself that when we have able-bodied men and women who would bludge and draw the pension, there is something wrong.”

   1967, New Zealand House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates, page 3164

   I mean, school′s like a job. If you work for it you get your grades; if you work your hours you get your money. But if you bludge, you don't get money; if you bludge you don't get any grades. That's something that I didn't realize when I was young.

   2004, John Smyth, Robert Hattam, et al., ‘Dropping Out,’ Drifting Off, Being Excluded: Becoming Somebody Without School, page 53

   Synonyms: idle, laze, lounge

5. AustraliaNew ZealandslangTo take some benefit and give nothing in return.

   Can I bludge a cigarette off you?

   2 more examples

   Gabriel was a classic bludger. He was a drop-out in the very modern sense of the word. The Rossettis were anything but well-heeled. Solid old brother William kept the show on the road. Gabriel bludged on the family. He bludged on his mates.

   1983, Max Harris, The Unknown Great Australian and other psychobiographical portraits, page 105

   Now an adult with his own family, this man has become conscious of different norms among his children's white friends, and that whites often see sharing as bludging.

   2004, Gillian Cowlishaw, Blackfellas, Whitefellas, and the Hidden Injuries of Race, page 135

   Synonyms: cadge, scrounge