The foundations of Australia as a convict settlement produced a unique society, one in which a new language was created. Convict Words: Language in Early Colonial Australia is the first dictionary to document the words that shaped this language, a language that in itself helped to shape a nation.

This dictionary captures the 'mythic' convict Australia: the lags, canaries, and magpies; floggings and treadmills; bellowsers and traps; absconders and bushrangers. There is also a more prosaic language of bureaucracy and administration: ticket of leave, absolute and conditional emancipations, and certificates of freedom.

Convict Words explores the language of the Australian convict era, taking the form of a dictionary with supporting quotations from contemporary texts, including newspapers, government reports and documents and novels. It will become an essential reference tool for all interested in this period of Australian history.