must have killed a Chinaman

English

Etymology

Referring to a putative, and otherwise unrecorded, Anglo-Australian superstition that killing a Chinese person brought about bad luck.

Pronunciation

  • (file)

Phrase

must have killed a Chinaman

  1. (Australia, dated, now offensive) A jocular explanation for bad luck.
    • 1925, L. M. Newton, The Story of the Twelfth: A Record of the 12th Battalion, page 132:
      It appeared as though someone in the Battalion must have killed a Chinaman, as the weather continued rough and stormy, with strong wind.
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:must have killed a Chinaman.

References

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