Word.ws English Dictionary

cockatoo farmer

cockatoo farmer noun: a small-scale farmer.

Noun

cockatoo farmer (plural cockatoo farmers)

  1. (Australia, derogatory, obsolete) A small-scale farmer.
    • The cockatoo farmer of South Australia lives a plentiful but not a picturesque life, and unless he gets hopelessly into debt is his own master.1875, Anthony Trollope, edited by Bradford Allen Booth, The Tireless Traveler: Twenty Letters to the Liverpool Mercury, page 177
    • “ Does it pay to breed cockatoos ?” said Archie innocently.
      “Don′t be the death o′ me, Johnnie. A cockatoo farmer is just a crofter.[…]”1888, William Gordon Stables, From Squire to Squatter, page 182

Forms of cockatoo farmer

pluralcockatoo farmers

Origin of cockatoo farmer

Probably refers to the practice of working a small patch of land for a short period before moving on, in the manner of a feeding cockatoo. Alternatively so called to compare the farmers with the common sulphur-crested cockatoo, which come down on the newly sown cornfields in myriads.

Questions about cockatoo farmer

What does cockatoo farmer mean?
Cockatoo farmer means a small-scale farmer.
What part of speech is cockatoo farmer?
Cockatoo farmer is a noun.
What is the plural of cockatoo farmer?
The plural of cockatoo farmer is cockatoo farmers.

Words near cockatoo farmer in the dictionary

  1. cockateels
  2. cockatiel
  3. cockatiels
  4. cockatoo
  5. cockatoo apple
  6. cockatoo farmer
  7. cockatoo farmers
  8. cockatoo grass
  9. cockatoo parrot
  10. cockatoo parrots
  11. cockatoos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cockatoo farmer (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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Cite this entry: “cockatoo farmer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cockatoo_farmer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.