jackaroo

plural jackaroos · alternative jackeroo

1. AustraliaobsoleteA white man living outside of a white settlement.
2. AustraliaA 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 Verses, page 37

   2 more examples

   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 Ward, The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads, page 86

   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

present singular third person jackaroos · participle present jackarooing · participle past jackarooed · past jackarooed · alternative jackeroo

1. intransitiveTo work as a jackaroo.

   Bill has gone jackarooing out west.