Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Miry.
  • Earthly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective UK Touchy, aggressive or confrontational, usually while drunk.
  • adjective Australia Vulgar and flashy.
  • adjective Australia Socially unacceptable.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Thought to be from leery ("knowing, streetwise").

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Examples

  • This album's lairy gloating is made just about bearable because Tinie is, at heart, a nice guy, who – like his most obvious referent, Kanye West – mentions his mum every few songs.

    Tinie Tempah: Disc-Overy Kitty Empire 2010

  • Those were the days of Richard Keys appearing in lairy, coloured suits – mustard or bright red – and former players making a name for themselves as pundits.

    I was there at the birth of Sky Sports – and what a kerfuffle | David James 2011

  • The background noise, a mixture of lairy shouting and R'n'B, is deafening.

    Diary of a separation 2011

  • Currently riding high with his lairy clubland anthems – but how can he be in this for the long haul?

    Chilly Gonzales's career clinic 2011

  • Whether she manages it or not you'll see for yourself while enjoying plenty of richly funny autobiographical stand-up; Pacquola's got a self-critical, obsessively questioning personality that's a far cry from the lairy Aussie stereotype.

    This week's new comedy 2011

  • Whether she manages it or not you'll see for yourself while enjoying plenty of richly funny autobiographical stand-up; Pacquola's got a self-critical, obsessively questioning personality that's a far cry from the lairy Aussie stereotype.

    This week's new comedy 2011

  • Much has been made of the "lairy, middle-aged" Take That fans on tour.

    Farewell and good riddance to Little Britain | Barbara Ellen 2011

  • Much has been made of the "lairy, middle-aged" Take That fans on tour.

    Farewell and good riddance to Little Britain | Barbara Ellen 2011

  • With his floppy haircut, tight T-shirt and lairy onstage swagger, you get the feeling that if he wasn't onstage he'd be on the lash with his mates, chucking kebabs about in the street, and wolf-whistling at girls.

    This week's new comedy 2011

  • She was also accompanied by a security detail, in case the locals became unacceptably lairy, and by her unborn son for that voguish thing, in utero slum tourism.

    TV review: Exile and The Secret Millionaire 2011

Comments

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  • A wonderful, richly endowed slang word. It has various useful meanings in Britain, but Down Under it is almost exclusively called upon as an adjective meaning: 1. exhibitionistic; flashy. 2. vulgar. (Macquarie Dictionary)

    frindley to new American friend: "Do you remember a few years back when Apple came out with computers in a whole bunch of lairy colours?"

    American friend: "What does lairy mean?" (and after explanation) "Ah, so my husband wears lairy pants!"

    (Indeed he did, loud checked ones!)

    April 10, 2008

  • Interesting - coming from the yewkay I use it to denote various stages on the continuum of inebrity - from a bit tipsy, to loud and rude, to roaring and reeling, to hungover. Also (of a person) to mean leery, unsanitary or seedy (c.f. your sense no. 2); also hairy in the sense of precarious. But your first sense I've never heard before.

    April 10, 2008

  • Hmmm, first sense might be an Australian thing. My parents' generation definitely use it in that way.

    A person who drives a loud car for example could be described as a lair.

    April 10, 2008

  • And without doubt he would also be a hoon. And would chuck u-ies!

    April 10, 2008

  • Does that make the place where they hold gatherings of dishonest flashy Australians the lair of the liar lair fair?

    April 10, 2008

  • "Where, we wonder, are the people of Nashville? That's one thing we like about our cities, we agree: there are always people about. They're usually drunk, of course. Drunk and lairy. But that is a good sign."

    Dogma by Lars Iyer, p 20

    June 9, 2012

  • From Joseph L. Flatley, “Beyond lies the wub: a history of dubstep,” The Verge, August 28, 2012 (http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/28/3262089/history-of-dubstep-beyond-lies-the-wub):

    Croydon is a town in South London, an outpost on the way north to London for at least a thousand years. According to Martin Clark, a music journalist, DJ, and musician who goes by the name of Blackdown, the town is "distinct because it’s kind of like its own entity... large and self-contained. It’s quite lairy." It was also home to Big Apple Records, in some ways the epicenter of dubstep in its earliest days, before "dubstep" was even a word.

    Lairy, according to the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, means "behaving in a loud, excited manner, especially when you are enjoying yourself or drinking alcohol." In my estimation, when people are especially enthusiastic and taken with intoxication, they’re also willing to put energy into things that aren’t stereotypically productive, such as making music. Let us take a moment to praise the lairy.

    August 29, 2012

  • ""They were very aggressive, very lairy, looking for trouble, and they got it really," (Robin) Lee told BuzzFeed News. "There was a PCSO and about four police officers, actually about seven of them on the platform, and a couple of them were being lairy and were wanting to antagonise me.""

    -- http://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/artist-arrested-for-charging-his-phone-on-the-london-overgro

    July 13, 2015