a fool; a hopeless individual. Originally Royal Australian Air Force slang for 'a recruit'. Said in an early RAAF source to be named after the '(spangled) drongo' (a large clumsy flying bird), but drongos are not particularly large (smaller than a pigeon), and while they are somewhat aerobatic and erractic flyers they are certainly not clumsy. Otherwise it has been suggested that it is an allusion to a racehorse named Drongo which gained notoriety for never winning a race and was used as a character in satirical political cartoons in the Melbourne Herald in the 1920s, which may be true despite the gap of 20 years AUSTRALIA, 1941.

a new recruit to the Royal Australian Air Force AUSTRALIA, 1941