Dictionary

poofter en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

From poof + -er.

Meanings

1. (Australia, Commonwealth, New-Zealand, Papua-New-Guinea, derogatory, qualifier:Pacific Islands, slang, vulgar) A male homosexual, especially an effeminate one.
   • "You pommy poofter. You give me any more of that liberal crap and I'll have your balls for a bow tie." Bond said mildly, "What's a poofter?" "What you'd call a pansy. No," Dikko Henderson got to his feet and fired a string of what sounded like lucid Japanese at the man behind the bar,[…]. 1964, Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice, page 36:
   • I just ignored them because I didn't think what I did made me a poofter. Me and Dwayne were best friends, and it was only because there were no girls around, and I liked it. My father taught me that homosexuality was unnatural, and that poofters were men who couldn't form relationships with women because they were horrifying, repulsive queers. 2007, John Mendoza, Mad Blue Smoke, Melbourne, Australia: Pasini Press, page 113:
   • Hallucinations, again, are the expression of repressed systems of ideas and desires; for example a man who has strong repressed homo-sexual tendencies may hear voices calling him a poofter. 1943, John Bostock, Evan Jones, The nervous soldier: a handbook for the prevention, detection and treatment of nervous invalidity in war, page 11:
   • Another man told me he was a "poofter," but I never was able to get a definition of this word from him. 1908 November 20, Sydney Montgomery, “Paranoia with some Cases”, in Australasian Medical Gazette, volume 27, number 11, Australasian Medical Association, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 598–602:
2. (Australia, Commonwealth, derogatory, slang) A pansy, an effeminate man.

Forms

Deriveds

woofter · poofterdom · poofterhood · poofterism

Descendants

pufta

Synonyms

friend of Dorothy · pansy · poof (male homosexual) · faggot · sissy · cockney (effeminate man)