laughing jackass
Laughing jackass is the old Australian nickname for the laughing kookaburra — named for its famously raucous call that sounds unsettlingly like a person laughing uncontrollably.
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Laughing jackass is the old Australian nickname for the laughing kookaburra — named for its famously raucous call that sounds unsettlingly like a person laughing uncontrollably. The term predates kookaburra as the mainstream name, and while it's now marked as obsolete in formal usage, it captures something the modern name doesn't: the bird's genuinely absurd, almost mocking sound echoing across the bush at dawn. In older Australian literature and speech, the laughing jackass was a quintessential sound of the outback.
Every morning the laughing jackass started up at six, waking the entire camp with its ridiculous cackle.
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(AU, obsolete) The laughing kookaburra, .
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🇦🇺About Australian & NZ slang slang
Aussie and Kiwi vocabulary — bogan, daggy, brekkie, sheila, bach, jandals — the whole Antipodean lexicon, including outback dialect, surf and beach culture, and Sydney/Melbourne street slang.
See all Australian & NZ slang slang on Slangora.
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Jacko is an Australian informal nickname for the laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), one of Australia's most iconic birds, famous for its distinctive call that sounds uncannily like loud human laughter. The nickname follows the Australian tradition of giving birds and animals friendly, shortened nicknames — similar to 'maggie' for magpie or 'cockie' for cockatoo. The kookaburra's call is so strongly associated with Australia that it is a standard sound effect in Hollywood films to indicate jungle settings worldwide.
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(AU, informal) laughing kookaburra.
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