nasho

Noun

nasho (plural nashos)

1. (Australia, informal, uncountable) Military national service, conscription.
   • National Service was meant to turn boys into men and make the Yellow Peril think twice about moving south. It was universally known as Nasho – a typically Australian diminutive.[…]But the most brutal fact about Nasho was the initial seventy-seven-day period of basic training, most of which took...1981, Clive James, Unreliable Memoirs, unnumbered page
2. (Australia, countable, informal) A person doing military national service.
   • The white Rhodie ‘nashos’ (another derogatory term for national servicemen—this time from the Brit regulars), however, brought to the battalion a level of education that was previously unknown.2007, Alexandre Binda, Chris Cocks, The Saints: The Rhodesian Light Infantry, page 176
   • […] an English acquaintance. He had been one of the national servicemen from the UK stationed in Malaya, and had had his share of duty on the night train. He explained that many of his ‘nasho’ colleagues were sensibly afraid of being shot at.2009, Raja (Arasa) Ratnam, The Dance of Destiny, page 166