List of English words of Australian Aboriginal origin facts for kids
These words of Australian Aboriginal origin include some that are used frequently within Australian-English, such as kangaroo and boomerang. Many such words have also become loaned words in other languages beyond English, while some are restricted to Australian English.
Contents
Flora and fauna
- ballart
- barramundi
- bilby
- bindii
- bogong
- boobook
- brigalow
- brolga
- budgerigar
- bunyip
- burdardu
- coolabah
- cunjevoi
- curara
- currawong
- dingo
- galah
- gang-gang
- geebung
- gidgee
- gilgie
- gymea
- jarrah
- kangaroo
- koala
- kookaburra
- kurrajong
- kutjera
- mallee
- marri
- mihirung
- mulga
- Myall
- numt
- pademelon
- potoroo
- quandong
- quokka
- quoll
- taipan
- wallaby
- wallaroo
- waratah
- warrigal
- witchetty
- wobbegong
- wombat
- wonga
- wonga-wonga
- yabby
Environment
- billabong
- bombora (rapids–often used to describe offshore reef breaks)
- boondie (hardened clump of sand; Noongar, W.A.)
- gilgai
- min-min lights (ground-level lights of uncertain origin sometimes seen in remote rural Australia)
- willy willy (dust devil)
Aboriginal culture
- alcheringa
- bingy (pron. binji) belly, esp. in bingy-button=navel
- boomerang
- bunyip
- coolamon (wooden curved bowl used to carry food or baby)
- corroboree
- dilli (a bag) commonly, and tautologically, as "dilly-bag"
- djanga
- gibber (a stone) esp. in gibber plain=stony desert
- gin (now a racially offensive word for an Aboriginal woman)
- gunyah
- humpy (a hut)
- kurdaitcha
- lubra (now a racially offensive word for an Aboriginal woman)
- marn grook
- mia-mia (a hut)
- nulla-nulla
- turndun
- waddy (a wooden club), earlier, any piece of wood
- woggabaliri
- woomera
- wurlie or wurley - a hut
- yabber or yabber-yabber (talk)
- yakka (doing work of any kind)
- Yara-ma-yha-who
Describing words
Place names
Names
- Kylie (Noongar word for "throwing stick")
English words often falsely assumed to be of Australian Aboriginal origin
- bandicoot (from the Telugu, pandikokku a term originally referring to the unrelated bandicoot rat)
- cockabully (from Māori kokopu)
- cockatoo (from Malay)
- didgeridoo (possibly from Irish or Scottish Gaelic dúdaire duh or dúdaire dúth [both /d̪u:d̪ɪrɪ d̪u:/] "black piper" or "native piper")
- emu (from Arabic, via Portuguese, for large bird)
- goanna (corruption of the Taíno iguana)
- jabiru (from the Spanish)
- nullarbor (Latin for no tree)'
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List of English words of Australian Aboriginal origin Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.