Learn English – What does “muster through” mean

australian-englishmeaningmeaning-in-contextphrase-meaning

From the movie Tracks:

Man: Where you from?

Robyn: I grew up on a cattle station near Darling Downs.

Man: Oh, a Queenslander, eh? What'd you run?

Robyn: Hereford.

Man: Hard country, that. Reckon she copped her share of drought, eh?

Robyn: Seven years.

Man: Muster through it, did ya?

Robyn: We went broke.

I figure it means something like "plow through," but can't find it in dictionaries. What does it mean exactly? And is it specific to Australian English?

Best Answer

Aha! I found a definitive reference to a meaning of muster that's specific to Australia and New Zealand, at Wikipedia:

A muster (Au/NZ) or a roundup (US) is the process of gathering livestock. Musters usually involve cattle, sheep or horses, but may also include goats, camels, buffalo or other animals. [...] Mustering is a long, difficult and sometimes dangerous job [...]

In your example, it looks like muster through is being used metaphorically by Australian farmers who would already be familiar with the literal meaning of mustering as making a long, difficult journey across the outback, trying to control livestock along the way. Metaphorically, it could refer to making a long "journey" through a very difficult situation.

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