Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Wiktionary
- adj. UK Touchy, aggressive or confrontational, usually while drunk.
- adj. Australia Vulgar and flashy.
- adj. Australia Socially unacceptable.
Etymologies
- Thought to be from leery ("knowing, streetwise"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Much has been made of the "lairy, middle-aged" Take That fans on tour.”
The Guardian: Farewell and good riddance to Little Britain | Barbara Ellen
“With his floppy haircut, tight T-shirt and lairy onstage swagger, you get the feeling that if he wasn't onstage he'd be on the lash with his mates, chucking kebabs about in the street, and wolf-whistling at girls.”
“Whether she manages it or not you'll see for yourself while enjoying plenty of richly funny autobiographical stand-up; Pacquola's got a self-critical, obsessively questioning personality that's a far cry from the lairy Aussie stereotype.”
“The background noise, a mixture of lairy shouting and R'n'B, is deafening.”
“She was also accompanied by a security detail, in case the locals became unacceptably lairy, and by her unborn son for that voguish thing, in utero slum tourism.”
“Currently riding high with his lairy clubland anthems – but how can he be in this for the long haul?”
“This album's lairy gloating is made just about bearable because Tinie is, at heart, a nice guy, who – like his most obvious referent, Kanye West – mentions his mum every few songs.”
“Those were the days of Richard Keys appearing in lairy, coloured suits – mustard or bright red – and former players making a name for themselves as pundits.”
The Guardian: I was there at the birth of Sky Sports – and what a kerfuffle | David James
“The latest offering from the you-fackin-muppet school of British cinema; Nick Nevern's tack is a fake doco, apparently shot by a middle-class kid for a class assignment, about the lairiest of lairy I'll-nick-anything-me geezers, played by Nevern himself.”
“But the unconverted are thin on the ground tonight, in an audience that unites surly teenage moshers with their mortal enemies, the lairy geezer who prefers to listen to music on a vast stereo installed in a Honda Civic modified with a carbon spoiler and an enormous exhaust pipe.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lairy’.
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British Cant & Slang, Old & New
Mostly, the cant words come from my reprint of Francis Grose's 1785 dictionary of 'The Vulgar Tongue', while the more modern slang has been found at various online sources, e.g. this online diction...
bog-standard, bumbaclot, brown trouser moment, bingo wings, bobfoc, babber, sweating, tantadlin tart, taplash, timber toe, tray trip, twiddle-diddles and 209 more...
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Oofy
States of being
seeress, honey bucket, donkeyman, poopyhead, halfwit, vixenish, galoot, hoity toity, shitkicker, miserabilist, wanker, clueless and 261 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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words I remember first encountering
fetlock, artefact, quandary, asyndeton, chiasmus, enjambement, vehemently, vituperative, decorum, sable, scansion, diapason and 75 more...
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Strewth Mate, or, The Antipodean Anhang
Aussie stuff that doesn't really belong in my other lists.
The name is a discreet tribute to Charles Cudworth and his essay: "Ye Olde Spuriosity Shoppe, or, Put it in the Anhang", whi...wagga wagga, woy woy, walla walla, wee waa, wollongong, cooee, lairy, australele, kafoops, bewdiful, nature strip, yonks and 42 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for lairy.
IndiaAmos From Joseph L. Flatley, “Beyond lies the wub: a history of dubstep,” The Verge, August 28, 2012 (http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/28/3262089/history-of-dubstep-beyond-lies-the-wub):
Aug 29, 2012knitandpurl "Where, we wonder, are the people of Nashville? That's one thing we like about our cities, we agree: there are always people about. They're usually drunk, of course. Drunk and lairy. But that is a good sign."
Dogma by Lars Iyer, p 20 Jun 8, 2012
asativum Does that make the place where they hold gatherings of dishonest flashy Australians the lair of the liar lair fair? Apr 10, 2008
frindley And without doubt he would also be a hoon. And would chuck u-ies! Apr 10, 2008
bilby Hmmm, first sense might be an Australian thing. My parents' generation definitely use it in that way.
A person who drives a loud car for example could be described as a lair. Apr 10, 2008
yarb Interesting - coming from the yewkay I use it to denote various stages on the continuum of inebrity - from a bit tipsy, to loud and rude, to roaring and reeling, to hungover. Also (of a person) to mean leery, unsanitary or seedy (c.f. your sense no. 2); also hairy in the sense of precarious. But your first sense I've never heard before. Apr 9, 2008
frindley A wonderful, richly endowed slang word. It has various useful meanings in Britain, but Down Under it is almost exclusively called upon as an adjective meaning: 1. exhibitionistic; flashy. 2. vulgar. (Macquarie Dictionary)
frindley to new American friend: "Do you remember a few years back when Apple came out with computers in a whole bunch of lairy colours?"
American friend: "What does lairy mean?" (and after explanation) "Ah, so my husband wears lairy pants!"
(Indeed he did, loud checked ones!) Apr 9, 2008