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• Aborigines
  Aborigines

  plural noun

  the plural form of Aborigine.
• aborigines
  aborigines

  The earliest known inhabitants of a region. The term is most often associated with the native hunting and gathering population of Australia, who preceded the arrival of white settlers. (See hunting and gathering societies.)

Aborigines

American  

[ab-uh-rij-uh-neez] / ˌæb əˈrɪdʒ ə niz /

plural noun

1. the plural form of Aborigine.

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aborigines Cultural  

1. The earliest known inhabitants of a region. The term is most often associated with the native hunting and gathering population of Australia, who preceded the arrival of white settlers. (See hunting and gathering societies.)

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Etymology

Origin of Aborigines

First recorded in 1540–50; Aborigine ( def. ) + -s ³ ( def. ); Aborigine ( def. )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Aborigines aborigines

Wartilykirri is a hooked boomerang shaped like the number seven, used by Aborigines in southeastern Australia.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2024

When the Australian Aborigines arrived on the continent of Australia, they started changing the ecosystem in very dramatic ways, and a lot of species went extinct.

From Salon ● Aug. 5, 2023

For days, he’d hitchhiked across the country in 100-degree heat, bound for Uluru/Ayers Rock, a red sandstone mountain sacred to Australia’s Aborigines.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 10, 2021

On May 27, 1967, 91 percent of Australian voters agreed by referendum to delete two discriminatory references to Aborigines in Australia’s Constitution.

From New York Times ● Nov. 15, 2017

But Cape York Aborigines did not adopt agriculture, in part because what they saw of it on Muralug Island was so watered-down.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

Now the Japanese, the Chinese, the Mongolian, the Turks, the Indians, the Afghans, the Persians, the Arabs, the Malayans, the American aborigines, and the African peoples are all non-white.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022

Depictions of lucid dreaming appear in Egyptian hieroglyphics and in the oral traditions of Australian aborigines.

From Slate ● May 28, 2018

At a referendum 18 years ago Australians rejected a clunky proposal by John Howard, the prime minister at the time, to mention aborigines in the constitution’s preamble.

From Economist ● Jul. 6, 2017

In Australia, however, aborigines did not depend on crops and lived as nomads in discrete regions.

From New York Times ● Mar. 8, 2017

After all, aborigines had reached Australia by boat tens of thousands of years ago.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann