Sav

Where "Sav" Comes From

Short for "saveloy," a bright red sausage that comes from French "cervelas." Green's Dictionary of Slang finds "sav" in a British song from 1894, so the word is not an Australian coinage, but the battered sav is a familiar fish-and-chip-shop and fairground snack here.

Sources: sav, n.1 (Green's Dictionary of Slang) · Saveloy (Wikipedia)

How Aussies Actually Use It

Already referenced on the site in "fair suck of the sav" — this is the standalone food-item sense.

Sav is a chip shop word. You will mostly hear it at the counter, when someone is ordering hot food to eat straight away, and it sounds relaxed rather than slangy in a way that needs explaining. People tend to say it in a set of orders: "a sav and chips", "two savs", "one with sauce". Most people mean the battered version, but a plain one can be ordered too.

For a learner, the useful thing is that sav is a food, not an adjective or a name, and it is different from a snag, which is a general word for a sausage cooked on a barbecue. Saying "sav" at a fish and chip shop is enough to be understood. It also explains the odd-sounding expression "fair suck of the sav", where the sausage is used for a mild protest.

See also: Fair Suck of the Sav (the expression that uses this word), Snag (the general word for a sausage), Hot Chips (what a sav usually comes with).