Word.ws English Dictionary

dinkum

/ˈdɪŋkəm/

dinkum adjective: genuine, true, honest, on the level.

Adjective

dinkum (comparative more dinkum, superlative most dinkum)

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) Genuine, true, honest, on the level.
    • Hon. Sir Ross McLarty: We were always dinkum.
    • Mr. MAY: The ultimate result showed how dinkum the hon. member was.1956, parliamentary debates (Western Australian Parliament), page 2194
    Synonyms:
    dinky-die

Noun

dinkum (uncountable)

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, obsolete, rare, slang) Hard work.
  2. (Australia, New Zealand, dated, slang) Truth.
    • You look real jockey — thats' the dinkum.1917, Ralph Albert Parlette, The Lyceum magazine, volume 27, page 20

Examples of dinkum in a sentence

  • The dinkum Aussie everyone talks about, almost always with a certain unreal sentimentality, is clearly a worker.1966, Craig McGregor, Profile of Australia, page 21:
  • Larry's jeep was behind mine, and as I went past an intersection, I saw a lot of their chaps around a dinkum super Mark VI tank — p'raps a Mark VII or VIII.2004, A. J. Liebling, Direction: Paris: Mollie and Other War Pieces, page 242:

All 10 example sentences with dinkum

Synonyms of dinkum

  • dinky-die

Forms of dinkum

comparativemore dinkum
superlativemost dinkum

Origin of dinkum

Unknown. Earliest recorded use in the phrase fair dinkum in 1879, from Australia. Also recorded (slightly later) from Derbyshire and Lincolnshire dialect. Perhaps related to Gloucestershire dialect ding (“to work hard”).

Words formed from dinkum

Questions about dinkum

What does dinkum mean?
Dinkum means genuine, true, honest, on the level.
How do you use dinkum in a sentence?
The dinkum Aussie everyone talks about, almost always with a certain unreal sentimentality, is clearly a worker.
What part of speech is dinkum?
Dinkum can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce dinkum?
Dinkum is pronounced /ˈdɪŋkəm/.

Words near dinkum in the dictionary

  1. Dinklage
  2. dinkle
  3. dinkles
  4. Dinkoism
  5. dinks
  6. dinkum
  7. dinkum oil
  8. dinkus
  9. dinkuses
  10. dinky
  11. dinky-di

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dinkum (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 dinkum.ogg.

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