Word.ws English Dictionary

must have killed a Chinaman

must have killed a Chinaman phrase: a jocular explanation for bad luck.

Phrase

must have killed a Chinaman

  1. (Australia, dated, offensive) A jocular explanation for bad luck.
    • It appeared as though someone in the Battalion must have killed a Chinaman, as the weather continued rough and stormy, with strong wind.1925, L. M. Newton, The Story of the Twelfth: A Record of the 12th Battalion, page 132

Origin of must have killed a Chinaman

Referring to a putative, and otherwise unrecorded, Anglo-Australian superstition that killing a Chinese person brought about bad luck.

Questions about must have killed a Chinaman

What does must have killed a Chinaman mean?
Must have killed a Chinaman means a jocular explanation for bad luck.
What part of speech is must have killed a Chinaman?
Must have killed a Chinaman is a phrase.

Words near must have killed a Chinaman in the dictionary

  1. mussuranas
  2. mussy
  3. must
  4. must get in front
  5. must have been the wind
  6. must have killed a Chinaman
  7. must needs
  8. must not
  9. must of
  10. must watch
  11. must watches

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: must have killed a Chinaman (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-must have killed a Chinaman.ogg.

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