bunyip aristocracy
noun Australian derogatory
People who consider themselves to be socially superior: they publish a list of Australia’s bunyip aristocracy of notable families...
- They were accused of trying to create a fake class system in Australia, a "bunyip aristocracy" that would distort our current honours system.
- The new government should transfer power from Downing Street into their own hands - to a new Colonial aristocracy, what was later ridiculed as a bunyip aristocracy.
- Negotiations could put that difference to rights in this new age of the bunyip aristocracy.
Origin
Mid 19th century: from bunyip + aristocracy. The phrase was coined in 1853 by the political orator Daniel Deniehy (1828–65), in a speech that ridiculed attempts to establish a titled aristocracy in Australia, by equating the validity of such a notion to the bunyip, a creature from Aboriginal mythology.