1An early immigrant to Australia who had no convict origins.
pure merinos might boycott balls if the children of convicts were among the guests
Example sentencesExamples
Pure merinos prided themselves on having no 'taint' of convict blood.
The government printer censored the text, deleting, among other passages, a paragraph on the pure merinos.
As the son of a convict mother and a near-convict father, he had squirmed beneath the disdain of Pure Merinos.
The "pure merinos" and the wealthy emancipists were forced to bury their differences in order to defend common economic interests.
The 'exclusives' or the 'pure merinos' looked down on the ex-convicts.
The free settlers and their descendants regarded themselves as socially and morally superior to those who had arrived as felons, or whose parents had been felons; and they gloried in the sobriquets of "pure merinos" in order to ditinguish themselves from the criminally tainted "emancipists".
The 'Pure Merinos' agitated in vain during the 1850s for convict transportation to solve their labour problems.
They styled themselves 'pure merinos', and they were absolutely not prepared to admit an emancipist, whatever his merits, to their circle.
The good guy, as described at one point in the film, is pure merino.
Free settlers, known as 'pure merinos', were outraged that ex-convicts, who still bore the stigma of bondage, should be treated as their equals.
1.1A member of a prominent family in Australian society.
only the pure merinos were fit to serve the troops
Example sentencesExamples
She was dancing every dance with other pure merinos.
The term pure merino became a metaphor for colonial aristocracy.
Representatives of the 'pure merinos' and the leading urban entrepreneurs and professional men might be asked to dine with the Governor.
The pure merinos pride themselves on being of the purest blood in the colony.
The Pure Merinos had invested their money in acquiring land.
It was quite clear she wasn't from the rich landowning classes known as the Pure Merinos.
Those without the blue blood but with plenty of cash will pay what you ask and double, they're so desperate to be accepted by the pure merinos.
On one occasion, a lady was invited to a ball, given by one of the 'aristocrats', but her husband was not considered sufficiently aristocratic to be admitted among the 'pure merinos', being only a clerk.
Dull beyond conception, proud with the inordinate pride that rests on no basis, and resentful of the land which gave them their living, the pure merinos represented a cause which was dying.
He moved in circles in which he met only those young men who had benefited from their upbringing and were in effect accepted as pure merinos once removed.