List of English words of Australian Aboriginal origin

This is a list of English words derived from Australian Aboriginal languages. Some are restricted to Australian English as a whole or to certain regions of the country. Others, such as kangaroo and boomerang, have become widely used in other varieties of English, and some have been borrowed into other languages beyond English.

Flora and fauna

• ballart
• barramundi^[1]
• bilby
• bindii
• bogong
• boobook
• brigalow
• brolga
• budgerigar
• bunyip
• burdardu
• coolabah^[1]
• cumbungi
• cunjevoi
• curara
• currawong
• dillon bush
• dingo
• galah
• gang-gang
• geebung
• gidgee
• gilgie
• gymea
• jarrah
• kangaroo^[2]
• koala
• kookaburra
• kurrajong
• kutjera
• mallee
• marri
• mihirung
• mulga
• Myall
• numbat
• pademelon
• potoroo
• quandong
• quokka
• quoll
• taipan
• wallaby
• wallaroo
• waratah^[1]
• 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.^[3])
• gilgai
• lerp (crystallized honeydew produced by larvae of psyllid bugs, gathered as food)
• 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)^[4] belly, esp. in bingy-button=navel
• boomerang
• bunyip^[4]
• cooee (a call used to attract attention)
• coolamon (wooden curved bowl used to carry food or baby)
• corroboree
• dilli (a bag)^[4] commonly, and tautologically, as "dilly-bag"
• djanga
• gibber (a stone)^[4] 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)^[4]
• nulla-nulla
• turndun
• waddy (a wooden club), earlier, any piece of wood^[4]
• woggabaliri
• woomera
• wurlie or wurley^[4] - a hut
• yabber or yabber-yabber (talk)^[4]
• yakka (doing work of any kind)^[4][5]
• Yara-ma-yha-who

Describing words

• Koori - Aboriginal people from Victoria and New South Wales
• cooee
• Nunga - Aboriginal people from South Australia
• Murri - Aboriginal people from Queensland
• Noongar - Aboriginal people from southern Western Australia
• Palawa - Aboriginal people from Tasmania
• yarndi (slang term for marijuana)^[6]

Place names

Main article: List of Australian place names of Aboriginal origin

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)^[7]
• cockabully (from Māori kokopu)^[8]
• cockatoo (from Malay)^[9]
• 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 Tupi–Guarani via Spanish, originally referred to an American bird)
• nullarbor (Latin for no tree)'^[10]