Crossword clues for bunyip
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1848, fabulous swamp-dwelling animal (supposedly inspired by fossil bones), from an Australian aborigine language.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context Australia English) A mythical Australian monster, said to inhabit swamps and lagoons. 2 (context Australia slang obsolete English) An imposter or con-man.
Wikipedia
The bunyip is a large mythical creature from Australian Aboriginal mythology, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes. The origin of the word bunyip has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of Aboriginal people of South-Eastern Australia. However, the bunyip appears to have formed part of traditional Aboriginal beliefs and stories throughout Australia, although its name varied according to tribal nomenclature. In his 2001 book, writer Robert Holden identified at least nine regional variations for the creature known as the bunyip across Aboriginal Australia. Various written accounts of bunyips were made by Europeans in the early and mid-19th century, as settlement spread across the country.
The Bunyip is a weekly newspaper originally published and printed in Gawler, South Australia, covering the Barossa, Light, Playford and Adelaide Plains regions. Since 2003 it has been a member of the Taylor Group of publications, printed in Renmark along with The Murray Pioneer (Riverland), The Loxton News ( Loxton), The River News ( Waikerie), The Border Times ( Pinnaroo and the Northern Mallee) and The Mid North Broadcaster.
Usage examples of "bunyip".
Shouting to be heard above the moan of the bullroarer and the wailing of the bunyip, he held high a solid-gold, intricately inscribed kazoo.
The Bunyip tore through the swamp, over the sandy patch where the prickly hakeas grew and the leptospermums and the banksias were in flower, and pretty blooms like the Actinotus and Thysonotus and Dillwynia and Tetratheca were glowing gaily.
The bunyip was a freshwater creature that was at first glance very sharklike in appearance, but the shaggy black hair that covered its body and the long, flowing mane set it apart.
We suspected that they had headed for the great Debil-devil Waterhole, where, it was said, the Bunyip appeared: that mysterious animal, or devil, or thing, which nobody has ever seen, but many have pretended to see.
He had often said he had seen a Bunyip, and that he'd bring one home some day, but no one took him seriously.
Bingong, being a native, must naturally have a constitutional fear of the Debil-debil, as the Bunyip is often called.
As I came near the group I heard my wife say to Billy, who looked sadly haggard and ill, that she was sure he would have got the Bunyip if it hadn't been for the terrible drought.
But my young brother was Third Reaction Drive Engineer of the old Bunyip when she went missing.