Austral. Also 9 waddie, whaddie. [In use among Australian aboriginals; perh. a native word, but possibly a corruption of Eng. wood.] An aboriginal war-club.
‘The word is sometimes used for a walking-stick’ (Morris).
1814. Flinders, Voy., II. 189. Something resembling the whaddie, or wooden sword of the natives of Port Jackson.
1818. Oxley, Jrnls. Two Exped. N. S. Wales (1820), 226. Alter beating their spears and waddies together for about a quarter of an hour,… they went away.
1852. Mundy, Our Antipodes, iv. (1855), 101. The waddy is a heavy, knobbed club, about two feet long.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer, xviii. Blows from the unerring waddy.
1892. J. Fraser, Aborigines of N. S. Wales, 74. A general name for all Australian clubs is ‘waddy,’ and, although they are really clubs, they are often used as missiles in battle.
attrib. a. 1904. W. Craig, Adv. Austral. Goldf., 283. The waddy blows inflicted … resulted in terrible injuries.
Hence Waddy v. trans., to strike, beat, or kill, with a waddy.
1855. Ld. Sherbrooke, Poems (1885), 100.
| When the white thieves had left me the black thieves appeared, | |
| My shepherds they waddied, my cattle they speared. |
1859. Huxley, Lett., 25 June, in L. Huxley, Life & Lett. (1903), I. xiii. 252. The fellows who waddied the Amphitherium and speared the Phascolotherium.
1890. Melbourne Argus, 16 Aug., 4/8. He waddied Kate pretty near to death when he got to camp that night.
