Word.ws English Dictionary

Lucky Country

Lucky Country proper noun: a term to describe Australia, sometimes ironically.

Proper noun

the Lucky Country

  1. (informal) A term to describe Australia, sometimes ironically.
    • Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.1964, Donald Horne, “The Lucky Country (last chapter)”, in The Lucky Country, Penguin, 1st paragraph of chapter
    • My friends, no longer content to be the lucky country, Australia must become the clever country.1990 March 8, Bob Hawke, Prime Minister of Australia, Australian federal election speeches

Origin of Lucky Country

After The Lucky Country, a 1964 book by Donald Horne.

Questions about Lucky Country

What does Lucky Country mean?
Lucky Country means a term to describe Australia, sometimes ironically.
What part of speech is Lucky Country?
Lucky Country is a proper noun.

Words near Lucky Country in the dictionary

  1. lucky breaks
  2. lucky charm
  3. lucky charms
  4. lucky clover
  5. lucky clovers
  6. Lucky Country
  7. lucky devil
  8. lucky devils
  9. lucky dip
  10. lucky dips
  11. lucky dog

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Lucky Country (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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