Word.ws English Dictionary

on one's Pat Malone

on one's Pat Malone prepositional phrase: alone, on one's own.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (Australia, slang) Alone, on one's own
    • "Who's paying?" asked Oscar. "Abo Department?"
      "Oh, no," said Lace lightly. "I'm doing it on my pat."1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter IX, in Capricornia, page 139
    • Poor little bludger, he wasn't happy standing there on his Pat Malone[.]1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 39

Forms of on one's Pat Malone

alternative formon one's pat

Origin of on one's Pat Malone

Australian rhyming slang; possibly from the ballad Paddy Malone in Australia, recounting the tribulations of an Irish immigrant.

Questions about on one's Pat Malone

What does on one's Pat Malone mean?
On one's Pat Malone means alone, on one's own.
What part of speech is on one's Pat Malone?
On one's Pat Malone is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on one's Pat Malone in the dictionary

  1. on one's own hook
  2. on one's own time
  3. on one's P's
  4. on one's part
  5. on one's pat
  6. on one's Pat Malone
  7. on one's period
  8. on one's person
  9. on one's plate
  10. on one's Ps
  11. on one's side

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on one's Pat Malone (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-on one's Pat Malone.ogg.

Cite this entry: “on one's Pat Malone.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/on_one%27s_pat_malone. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.