come the raw prawn
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.86 in modern English
30
Scrabble Score
15
Letters
1
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "1951, Dymphna Cusack, Florence James, 1957, Come In Spinner, page 306, “ […] Coupla bastards come the raw prawn over me on the last lap up from Melbourne and I done me last bob at Swy.”"
- ""Don't come the raw prawn! I only gave her a bit of a smack on the chops, we didn't get around to the fair dinkum article!"
- "Come on, Dimitri, don't come the raw prawn love! Four quid's the price."
- "— I do not suggest that the Minister for the Environment, Sport and Territories, Senator Faulkner, is attempting to come the raw prawn with the Senate on these particular measures, but I do feel that he is trying to use these in an attempt to suggest to the Senate that this is an unintended consequence of the November decision."
- "“That′s bullshit Norbert. I brought you in to get the straight dope direct from your mate the General. So don′t come the raw prawn with me, matey.”"
- "Until this dag in a shiny new uniform comes the raw prawn and says I didn′t salute him with proper respect."
Etymology
From World War II military slang. Construction obscure; suggestions are: * From come (“act the part of”) + the + raw (“naive”) + prawn (“(slang) fool”) — thus, to attempt to deceive by feigning ignorance. * From come (“(putatively) perpetrate”) + the + raw prawn = something hard to swallow.
Usage
Inflected Forms
comes the raw prawn (present, singular)
coming the raw prawn (participle, present)
came the raw prawn (past)