rousie

plural rousies

1. AustraliaNew ZealandcolloquialA rouseabout.

   Kate, their young rousie, threw the fleece up and over the table.

   2011, Fiona Palmer, Heart of Gold, Michael Joseph, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   The aim of the rouser is eventually to become a shearer via the medium of the learner’s pen, and in fact the rousie is really an apprentice shearer; but there is certainly a great gulf between the accomplished prince of the board and the miserable rouseabout in the strange new world of his first shed.

   1967, Graham Jenkin, Two Years on Bardunyah Station: Being an Account of the Experiences of a Jackaroo, Together with Some Poems, etc., Seacombe Heights, South Australia: Pitjantjara Publishers, page 66

   “[Y]ou ever try shearing sheep? Unwilling sheep?” “I’ve worked as rousie, never shearer, but I’ve seen them carry on.”

   1983, Keri Hulme, The Bone People, Baton Rouge, La.; London: Louisiana State University Press, published 1985, →ISBN