List of English words of Australian Aboriginal origin

These words of Australian Aboriginal origin include some that are almost universal in the English-speaking world, such as kangaroo and boomerang. Many such words have also become loan words in other languages beyond English, while some are restricted to Australian English.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Flora and fauna

• ballart
• barramundi
• bilby
• Bindii-eye
• bogong
• boobook
• brigalow
• brolga
• budgerigar
• bunyip
• burdardu
• coolibah
• cunjevoi
• curara
• currawong
• dingo
• drongo
• galah
• gang-gang
• geebung
• gidgee
• gilgie
• gymea
• jarrah
• joogee (yabee)
• 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.)
• gibber (a boulder)
• gilgai
• min-min lights (ground-level lights of uncertain origin sometimes seen in remote rural Australia)
• pindari (high ground)
• willy willy (dust devil)

Aboriginal culture

• alcheringa
• bogey (a bath)
• boomerang
• bunyip
• coolamon (wooden curved bowl used to carry food or baby)
• corroboree
• djanga
• gunyah
• humpy (a hut)
• kurdaitcha
• lubra (a racially offensive word for an Aboriginal woman)
• marn grook
• mia-mia (a hut)
• nulla-nulla
• turndun
• waddy (a wooden club)
• woggabaliri
• woomera
• wurlie - a hut
• Yara-ma-yha-who

Describing words

• Koori - Aboriginal people from Victoria and New South Wales
• cooee
• Murri - Aboriginal people from Queensland
• Nungga - Aboriginal people from South Australia
• Noongar - Aboriginal people from southern Western Australia
• yabber - to talk
• yakka - work
• yarndi (slang term for marijuana)

Place names

Main article: List of Australian place names of Aboriginal origin

Names

• Kylie (Noongar word for "throwing stick")
• Narelle (possibly a back-formation of Sydney suburb Narellan)

Aboriginal-sounding words not of Aboriginal origin

• bandicoot (from Telugu)
• cockabully (from Māori kokopu)
• cockatoo (from Malay)
• didgeridoo (possibly from Irish or Scots Gaelic dúdaire dubh or dúdaire dúth [both /d̪u:d̪ɪrɪ d̪u:/] "black piper" or "native piper")
• emu (from Arabic, via Portuguese, for large bird)
• goanna (corruption of iguana)
• jabiru (from the Spanish)
• Nullarbor (Latin for no tree)