Word.ws English Dictionary

Blind Freddy

Blind Freddy proper noun: an imaginary incapacitated person held up as an archetype of incapacity: what blind Freddy can see (understand) must be very obvious.

Proper noun

Blind Freddy

  1. (Australia, informal) An imaginary incapacitated person held up as an archetype of incapacity: what blind Freddy can see (understand) must be very obvious.
    • “I thought you might have bet on Mart,” Angus said coldly. “Just for old times′ sake.”
      “Don't be Uncle Willy,” Jerry admonished him, mildly. “Old Blind Freddy could'a seen Mart was a gonner. Although I admit I had the wind up a couple′a times!” Angus felt the blood rise in his face.1965, Leonie Judith Gibson Kramer, editor, Coast to Coast: Australian Stories, 1963-1964, page 80
    • Mr Cook said ‘Look, blind Freddy would know that was for scaffolding,’ and he said, ‘Yes, of course,’. He did not have to be told, blind Freddy would know it, anybody in the timber trade would know it.1973, Council of Law Reporting for New South Wales, New South Wales Law Reports, volume 2, page 54

Origin of Blind Freddy

The use of "Blind Freddy" meaning "anyone can see..." dates to at least 1907 Theories concerning actual persons called Blind Freddy include reference to: * A blind hawker called Freddy or Freddie who lived in Sydney in the 1920s. * A police officer, Sir Frederick William Pottinger, who was in charge of the Lachlan district. The success of bushranger Ben Hall in evading capture there in 1862 is claimed to have earned Pottinger the nickname "Blind Freddy". However, no contemporary evidence that Pottinger was so called exists. Various Australian individuals were known as "Blind Freddy" or "Blind Freddie" from at least 1902, in apparent reference to an actual physical infirmity

Questions about Blind Freddy

What does Blind Freddy mean?
Blind Freddy means an imaginary incapacitated person held up as an archetype of incapacity: what blind Freddy can see (understand) must be very obvious.
What part of speech is Blind Freddy?
Blind Freddy is a proper noun.

Words near Blind Freddy in the dictionary

  1. blind excuses
  2. blind faith
  3. blind folio
  4. blind folios
  5. Blind Freddie
  6. Blind Freddy
  7. blind goby
  8. blind grass
  9. blind gut
  10. blind guts
  11. Blind Half-Hundred

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Blind Freddy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-Blind Freddy.ogg.

Cite this entry: “Blind Freddy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blind_freddy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.