Where "Chunder" Comes From
"Chunder" is believed to derive from Cockney rhyming slang — "Chunder Loo" rhymes with "spew," and Chunder Loo was a cartoon character drawn by Norman Lindsay for a series of Cobra boot-polish advertisements in early 1900s Australian newspapers. The first recorded use in print is in Nevil Shute's 1950 novel A Town Like Alice, placing it in Australian vocabulary by mid-century.
From there it moved into surfing slang in the 1960s, which was where Barry Humphries found it — he deployed it in his Barry McKenzie comic strip in the British satirical magazine Private Eye, spreading the word internationally. The popular "watch under" theory — that passengers on emigrant ships would shout it as a warning before being sick over the rail — is a later folk etymology that doesn't hold up historically.
Source: World Wide Words — "Chunder: Australian Slang Origins and Etymology"
"He chundered in the garden after the party."
How Aussies Actually Use It
Almost always tied to a big night out — "he chundered in the garden after the party" is exactly the sort of casual, unbothered way Australians describe an unfortunate but not uncommon outcome.
It's blunt without being crude, said with a laugh more often than sympathy.
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