never-never
Noun 1. Installment plan; a system of buying goods by making regular payments over time. This is the primary and most common meaning, especially in British English. It refers to buying something on credit, where the buyer does not own the item until all payments are complete. 2. The remote and uninhabited outback of Australia. This is an archaic or highly specific Australian usage, referring to vast, unpopulated desert regions.
The word is almost always used in the fixed phrase "on the never-never." It is informal and somewhat old-fashioned.
Examples: * "They couldn't afford the sofa outright, so they got it on the never-never." (Meaning: on an installment plan) * "In the 1960s, many families acquired their first television set on the never-never." (Meaning: on hire purchase/credit) * (Archaic) "The explorer ventured deep into the never-never, a land of red dust and endless horizons." (Meaning: the remote Australian outback)
- The term often carries a slightly negative or cautious connotation, implying debt or financial overextension.
- It is a colloquial synonym for more formal terms like "hire purchase" or "installment plan."
- Hire Purchase (HP): (noun, chiefly British) A formal term for buying goods through an installment plan.
- Installment Plan: (noun) The standard term for the method of payment.
- Credit Agreement: (noun) A more formal and legal term.
- Installment plan
- Hire purchase (chiefly British)
- Credit
- Layaway (American English, though layaway typically implies the item is held until paid in full, not used immediately)
- Outright purchase
- Cash payment
- On the never-never: The standard idiom using this word. It means to buy something using an installment credit plan.
- Example: "Be careful about buying too many things on the never-never; the interest adds up."
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the remote outback of Australia; unpopulated desert country
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installment plan
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we bought a car on the never-never
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