English

Noun

bodgie ‎(plural bodgies)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) A member of a 1950s rock subculture; a male member of the subculture.
   • 1993, Lesley Johnson, The Modern Girl: Girlhood and Growing Up, page 100,

     Unlike McDonald, Manning noted with dismay that traditional relations between the sexes were broken down in bodgie groups. Bodgies, he argued, were disturbed youth, hooligans, maladjusted.

   • 2001, Roy Shuker, Understanding Popular Music, page 223,

     The New Zealand public and press largely shared his view of bodgies as juvenile delinquents who posed a social threat. The bodgie soon became a national bogey man, with alarmist newspaper reports about bodgie behaviour.

   • 2010, William Stokes, Westbrook, page 183,

     In Toowoomba, Magistrate Kearney was up in arms over the bodgies and widgies in town – those dressed-up teenagers with their spruced hair and polka-dot dresses who loitered around the city streets. They were seen as a threat to society.

Coordinate terms

• widgie (female)

Synonyms

• (member of 50s rock subculture): greaser (US), rocker (British)