wowser
/ˈwaʊzə(ɹ)/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.54 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
One with strong moral views against alcohol, gambling, pornography, etc., who seeks to promulgate those views; a censorious, self-righteous, puritanical person who tries to stop others from having fun.
Australian usage; New Zealand usage; Derogatory
noun
Alternative form of wowzer.
intj
Alternative form of wowsers.
Example Sentences
- "“I’d like to come with you one day up to the top end,” she said. “I suppose it’ll have to be after we’re married.” He grinned. “Plenty of wowsers back in Willstown to talk about it, if you came before.”"
- "As for the rest, the pay is not bad, coming as it does from the pockets of the three local warlords who hired me: two graziers, one of whom is also a terrible wowser (everyone calls him 'Mr Prophet', though I call him - privately, of course - Mr Brimstone, or Old Blood-and-Thunderguts); the third is the owner of the pub."
- "When they have paid attention to temperance advocates they have tended to dismiss them as ‘wowsers’ or ‘puritans’ intent on suppressing pleasure."
- "Quite simply, to a wowser, adults should not be allowed to see, hear and read as they wished, but should only be allowed to see hear and read that which fully conforms to Australia's Christian heritage[…]."
- "He's a bit of a prig. A wowser. Very Methodist."
- "Its title was “The Time Raider," and this story, which has never been reprinted, was a wowser."
Etymology
From UK dialect. Australian from late 1890s. John Norton, an early enemy of wowsers, claimed it to be an acronym for "We Only Want Social Evils Remedied", but that is likely a folk etymology. A story has it that gospellers in the streets of Clunes, Victoria in the 1870s were called rousers but one of the town councillors had a speech impediment and couldn't pronounce his "R"s, thus giving wowser. (Reference: Bill Wannan, Australian Folklore, Lansdowne Press, 1970, reprint 1979 →ISBN, under "Wowser", page 568.)