dingo's breakfast

dingo +‎ 's +‎ breakfast. First use appears c. 1965 in the writings of K. McKenney. (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “specifically, why was the dingo chosen for such a term?”)

dingo's breakfast

1. (Australia, slang) No breakfast at all.

   Synonym: bushman's breakfast

   • 1965, K. McKeney, Hide-Away Man, page 101:

     ' Here's yer dinner,' he said, adding with a wink 'I already had me breakfast ' 'What was that?' 'Dingo's breakfast. A piss and a look around.'

   • 2007, Bernie Matthews, Intractable, page 132:

     Some had a 'dingo's breakfast': a piss, a fart and a good look around.

   • 2014, Lisa A. Olech, Picture Me Naked:

     "Didn't you have a proper breakfast before you headed off this morning?" He shook his head. "Had me a dingo's breakfast.”

   • 2016, Matt Chadwick, Dirt Classroom, page 39:

     The next day, after an early dingo's breakfast, which consists only of water, we headed out to chase down the elusive swine.

   • 2017, Richard Segal, Sunday Night at the Races:

     "Don't you want to wash before you leave, or could I make you some breakfast?" Dar asked. "No thanks," Jay replied. "a dingo's breakfast for me. […] "

   • 2022, Peter FitzSimons, The Battle of Long Tan:

     Time for another dingo's breakfast.

2. (Australia, slang) Nothing, especially in a situation where there should be something.
   • 2013, Anna Romer, Thornwood House:

     'You'll get that ache,' she used to say, tapping her fingers in the hollow of my bony ten-year-old ribcage, 'a sort of tightness in the middle of your chest, just behind your breastbone. Don't go fobbing it off as indigestion, my girl—it's your internal barometer warning you that you're about to make a dingo's breakfast out of your life.'

   • 2015, Susan Duxbury, Up the Gum Tree, page 153:

     "A real 'dinkum Bushie' doesn't give a dingo's breakfast where he sleeps,” said Eddy and the thick lacing of spider's web on the roof of the veranda didn't bother him either.

   • 2017, Julian Lees, The Burnings:

     'But when you searched the hills you found nothing.' 'Not a thing. A dingo's breakfast. […] '