Meaning
In Australian English, cossie is an informal word for a swimming costume, swimsuit, or swimwear garment.
How it is used
Australian National Dictionary Centre material records cossie/cossies among Australian swimwear vocabulary, while ABC Sydney used cossie naturally in a 2022 discussion about how far from the beach people can wear their swimwear. Cambridge independently records the same informal swimming-costume meaning and treats cozzie as a spelling used in UK and Australian English, which is why Maperla keeps cossie as the Australian canonical form while acknowledging broader English overlap.
Examples
- “Don’t forget your cossie for the pool.”
- “She packed a cossie and a towel for the beach.”
- “I need a new cossie before summer starts.”
Pronunciation
/ˈkɒzi/ · KOZ-ee
Tone and register
Casual, familiar, and ordinary in Australian swimwear, pool, beach, packing, and summer contexts. It does not imply a particular garment cut, gender, age group, or level of formality beyond being an informal label for swimwear.
Visitor guidance
Visitors can understand cossie as an informal swimsuit or swimming-costume term. Cozzie is a reviewed spelling variant, and cossies is the ordinary plural rather than a separate word page. When maximum clarity matters, swimsuit or swimwear works across regions.
Cultural context
Cossie is useful because it belongs to the varied Australian swimwear vocabulary that also includes bathers, swimmers, togs, and more specific labels. Maperla does not treat those separate words as spelling variants, does not claim cossie was invented in Australia, and does not infer nationality, age, class, gender, region, beach culture, or local authenticity from one use.
Places represented
Open the reviewed place guide for each regional sense carried by this canonical entry.