Where "Miserable as a Bandicoot" Comes From
Bandicoots are small, long-nosed marsupials, and the association between them and hardship in Australian English goes back to the earliest decades of European settlement. By the mid-1820s, "bandicoot" had become a byword for poverty and desolation in Australian vernacular — land so bad "a bandicoot would starve on it" was a common description of infertile country. The simile "miserable as a bandicoot" grew directly from that association and was first recorded in the 1820s.
The word "bandicoot" itself came to Australian English via India, where "pandi kokku" (pig-rat) in the Telugu language was applied to large rodents by British colonists before being transferred to the unrelated Australian marsupials. Over the following century, "miserable as a bandicoot" kept turning up to describe both scrawny livestock and thoroughly unhappy people, cementing the bandicoot's reputation in Australian English as a synonym for looking, or feeling, thoroughly down and out.
Source: Macquarie Dictionary — "Are you as bald as a bandicoot?"
"Ever since his footy team got knocked out, he's been miserable as a bandicoot."
How Aussies Actually Use It
It's a colourful, old-fashioned way to describe someone who's thoroughly down in the dumps — sulking, disappointed, or just having a rough trot.
You're most likely to hear it from older Australians, often paired with a specific reason for the misery, like a lost game or a bit of bad luck.
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