Browse dictionary
Showing 1-20 of 30 results in 30 entries
1. bandy-bandy, n. View full entry 1926
...The name in Australia of a nocturnal snake, Furina annulata, marked with black and white bands; also called bandy-snake....
2. bardy, n. View full entry 1926
...An edible Australian wood-boring grub (Bardistus cibarius) or its larvæ. Used locally in starve the bardies!, an exclamatory phr. of surprise or disgust....
3. bilby, n. View full entry 1903
...An Australian nocturnal burrowing marsupial with blue-grey fur; rabbit-bandicoot. Also attrib., as bilby-hole....
4. bombora, n. View full entry 1933
...A dangerous stretch of water where the waves break over a submerged reef of rocks....
5. boodie-rat, n. View full entry 1910
...A species of rat-kangaroo. Also called boodie....
6. boong, n. View full entry 1941
...An (Australian) Aboriginal; a native of New Guinea; also, any coloured person....
7. callop, n. View full entry 1921
...An Australian freshwater fish, Plectroplites ambiguus....
8. currawong, n. View full entry 1926
...The native name in Australia for a bird of the genus Strepera (see quot. 1926)....
9. Dyirbal, adj. and n. View full entry 1901
...Of or relating to an Australian Aboriginal language spoken in the vicinity of Tully and Atherton in N.E. Queensland, or the people who speak it....
10. Jindyworobak, n. View full entry 1938
...A member of a group founded in 1938 by R. C. Ingamells (1913-55) to promote Australianism in literature, art, etc. Also attrib. or as ...
11. Maluka, n. View full entry 1905
...The person in charge; the boss....
12. marl, n.6 View full entry 1941
...A small, light-coloured bandicoot with a striped rump, Perameles bougainville, formerly found in heath and dune habitats across southern Australia, but now known only from two islands in Shark Bay,...
13. marron, n.2 View full entry 1943
...A large freshwater crayfish, Cherax tenuimanus, which inhabits the sandy beds of rivers and streams in western Australia. Also: the flesh of this crayfish as food....
14. monaych, n. View full entry 1961
...The police. Also as a count noun: a police officer....
15. Moomba, n. View full entry 1955
...The annual carnival held in Melbourne since 1955. Freq. attrib....
16. mulgara, n. View full entry 1941
...A rat-sized carnivorous marsupial with a pointed snout, Dasycercus cristicauda (family Dasyuridae), native to arid regions of central Australia....
17. munjon, n. View full entry 1945
...An Australian Aborigine who has little experience of white society and its customs. Sometimes also: an Aborigine brought up in white society and therefore unfamiliar with the traditional Aboriginal way of life....
18. Pama-Nyungan, n. and adj. View full entry 1962
...A proposed language family which comprises most of the Aboriginal languages of Australia, excluding those spoken in the north-west, and covers nine-tenths of the continent....
19. perentie, n. View full entry 1905
...A large burrowing monitor lizard, Varanus giganteus, which grows to between two and three metres (six to ten feet) in length and is found in desert areas of central and...
20. pink-eye, n.2 View full entry 1901
...Chiefly in Western Australia: a period of rest, a holiday; spec. a journey undertaken by an Australian Aborigine in order to withdraw temporarily from white society and return to a...
