Word.ws English Dictionary

come the raw prawn

come the raw prawn verb: to attempt to deceive or impose upon (someone).

Verb

come the raw prawn (third-person singular simple present comes the raw prawn, present participle coming the raw prawn, simple past came the raw prawn, past participle come the raw prawn)

  1. (Australia, informal, intransitive) To attempt to deceive or impose upon (someone).
    • “ […] Coupla bastards come the raw prawn over me on the last lap up from Melbourne and I done me last bob at Swy.”1951, Dymphna Cusack, Florence James, 1957, Come In Spinner, page 306
    • "Don't come the raw prawn! I only gave her a bit of a smack on the chops, we didn't get around to the fair dinkum article!1968, Barrie Humphries, The wonderful World of Barry McKenzie, page 12

Examples of come the raw prawn in a sentence

  • Come on, Dimitri, don't come the raw prawn love!1979, Lance Peters, The Dirty Half-Mile, page 155:
  • So don′t come the raw prawn with me, matey.”2003, Glen Conrad, Walk a Mile in My Shoes, page 300:

Forms of come the raw prawn

third-person singular presentcomes the raw prawn
present participlecoming the raw prawn
pastcame the raw prawn
past participlecome the raw prawn

Origin of come the raw prawn

From World War II military slang. Construction obscure; suggestions are: * From come (“act the part of”) + the + raw (“naive”) + prawn (“(slang) fool”) — thus, to attempt to deceive by feigning ignorance. * From come (“(putatively) perpetrate”) + the + raw prawn = something hard to swallow.

Questions about come the raw prawn

What does come the raw prawn mean?
Come the raw prawn means to attempt to deceive or impose upon (someone).
How do you use come the raw prawn in a sentence?
Come on, Dimitri, don't come the raw prawn love!
What part of speech is come the raw prawn?
Come the raw prawn is a verb.
What is the past tense of come the raw prawn?
The past tense of come the raw prawn is came the raw prawn.

Words near come the raw prawn in the dictionary

  1. come short
  2. come stà
  3. come the acid
  4. come the old acid
  5. come the old soldier
  6. come the raw prawn
  7. come thick and fast
  8. come through
  9. come to
  10. come to a boil
  11. come to a close

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: come the raw prawn (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 ck1 come the raw prawn.ogg.

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