fair dinkum

Australia[ˌfeː ˈdɪŋ.kəm]

adjective

Genuine, honest, fair and square.

Meanings

adjectivefair dinkum (not comparable)
  1. Australianot comparableslangGenuine, honest, fair and square.

    Are you fair dinkum?

    Are you telling me the truth?; Do you really mean that?

    4 more examples

    I mean, if they were out at a concert or something, or if they were involved in some other out-of-school social activity and some fair dinkum Aussie bloke, with a fair dinkum Aussie accent, and a fair dinkum Aussie hat, preferably chewing on a fair dinkum gum leaf, and holding a koala bear in one hand and a kangaroo in the other stood up and delivered those Lawson poems in full bore Strine, the girls would probably have loved him.

    2002, John Dutch, April and Anderson, page 63

    2004, Susie Ashworth et al., Lonely Planet Australia, When people think of Australia they commonly think of the outback; or koalas, kangaroos and ‘fair dinkum’ frontier types.

    ‘You're not wrong there, Doc. Of course, you'd get more of a fair dinkum picture if you were able to interview members of the Wilson family but that would be darned near impossible.’

    2007, Barbara Hartmann King, Coloured Sands, page 55

    2008 Joe Hockey interviewed on 4 Corners, https://web.archive.org/web/20080413070720/http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/s2165787.htm, He appreciated the honesty, he appreciated the fact that I rang him and was prepared to be fair dinkum with him, and he heard what I said.

    Synonyms: for real, genuine, honest, straight dinkum, true

adverbfair dinkum (not comparable)
  1. Australianot comparableslangTruly, honestly.

    Fair dinkum, I'm being straight up with you now, I could have hit him.

    1995, Edward Berridge, The Lives of the Saints, page 33
    3 more examples

    She checked what he had produced against the diagram in her book, smiled and said, “Fair dinkum, you really do teach maths,” which took Daniel a little by surprise as he wasn’t sure what “fair dinkum” meant, but as it was accompanied by a smile he assumed it was some form of approval.

    1991, Jeffrey Archer, As the Crow Flies, Pan Macmillan, published 2004, unnumbered page

    Kevin, fair dinkum mate, you've got to put your boot into the ball, you're too slow to do all this finessin'.

    2004, Sally Warhaft, Well May We Say: The Speeches That Made Australia, page 466

    2011, Annabel Stafford, The Mob Can't Hurt You, University of Technology, Sydney, The Life You Chose and That Chose You: The 25th UTS Writers' Anthology, unnumbered page, Well, then I've started fucken crying cause I'm fair dinkum scared the prick's gonna kill me. […] Fair dinkum, it sounds like the whole fucken town's out.

    Synonyms: for real, straight up

Synonyms & antonyms

adjectiveGenuine, honest, fair and square.

adverbTruly, honestly.

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

fair dinkum. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fair%20dinkum

MLA

“fair dinkum.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fair%20dinkum. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “fair dinkum,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fair%20dinkum.

Source: fair dinkum on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.