Dictionary

bottle-o en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈbɒtələʊ/
• (Australia) audio
• [ˈbɔɾl̩əʉ] (Australia)

Etymology

Etymology tree Latin buttis Proto-Indo-European *-lós Proto-Indo-European *-elós Proto-Italic *-elos Proto-Italic *-kelos Latin -culus Late Latin butticula Old French boteillebor. Middle English botel English bottle Latin ō Old French ohbor. Middle English o English O English oh English -o English bottle-o From bottle + -o (diminutive suffix).

Meanings

1. (Australia, New-Zealand, informal) A bottle shop.
2. (Australia, informal, obsolete) A door-to-door trader in used bottles.
   • And Pa, that bottle-o, drunk once on misery. 1970, Patrick White, The Vivisector, Vintage, published 1994, page 574:
   • When Kate was a girl living in Albert Park, a lifetime before she met Rex, her bottle-o had some sort of motor truck. Some of us can remember the horse and cart used by the bottle-o, the milk-o, the ice-man, and especially the woodman. 2011, Richard Plant, Life's a Blur, unnumbered page:
   • For travellers have to carry bags, / And swagmen have to hump their swags / Like bottle-ohs or ragmen. 1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 14:
   • a. 1922, Henry Lawson, 1984, Leonard Cronin (editor), A Fantasy of Man: Henry Lawson Complete Works, 1901-1922, Part 2, page 546, Time was when my old friend, Benno the bottle-o, drew his turn-out into the shade of the big old fig-trees under the church at the top of the hill, and went back and thrashed the most notoriously brutal driver well and good.
   • Another character was the bottle-o man. He would come around on weekends down the lane standing on a dray driven by an old horse while he cried out: “booooddle-o, any old rags and boddles? Booooddle-o”. 2010, Kathleen M. McGinley, Out of the Daydream: Based on the Autobiography of Barry Mcginley Jones, page 74:
   • the bottle-oh with the cleft tongue rode his wagon wrapped tight in an old grey blanket and had his battle-oh cries blown westwards before the icy gusts of wind. 1985, Peter Carey, Illywhacker, Faber and Faber, published 2003, page 103:

Forms