What it means
Means to have a rummage about, nosey but in a relaxed, curious way, like you’re half searching and half enjoying the clutter. You can fossick through drawers, an op shop, a garage sale, or the back of the shed looking for a hidden gem. The word comes from goldfield days, when prospectors fossicked for bits of gold.
Usage examples
"Stop fossicking in the shed, Mum yelled. I’m trying to find my old cricket bat, but I keep turning up stubby holders and dust."
"I had a good fossick through the shed and found Dad's old fishing gear under a pile of tarps."
"She loves fossicking in op shops, came home with a vintage teapot and three records for a fiver."
Where it comes from
From the older British dialect verb fussock (to fidget, to bustle about uselessly), attested in northern English speech of the eighteenth century, transferred to Australian English in the nineteenth century by the goldminers of the Victoria and New South Wales rushes of the eighteen fifties as the standard term for searching through gravel and rock debris of the river beds for stray nuggets and flakes of gold. The word stuck in Australian English with the broader sense of relaxed, curious rummaging, and travelled back to British dialect speech of the twentieth century through the migrations of the post-war families to fossick through the boot fairs, op shops and country jumble sales of the modern era.
Editors of this term
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