billabong
Americannoun
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a branch of a river flowing away from the main stream but leading to no other body of water; a blind or dead-end channel.
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a creek bed holding water only in the rainy season; a dried-up watercourse.
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a stagnant backwater or slough formed by receding floodwater.
noun
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a backwater channel that forms a lagoon or pool
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a branch of a river running to a dead end
Etymology
Origin of billabong
1830–40; < Wiradjuri bilabaŋ creek that runs only during the rainy season, equivalent to bila river + baŋ possessive suffix
Vocabulary lists containing billabong
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The second, which came out in 2016, held 16,000, including words borrowed from more than 100 Indigenous Australian languages — billabong, kangaroo and yabby, to name a few.
From New York Times ● Jun. 19, 2022
Sonia Namarnyilk layered three stencils to print complex patterns of mermaid-like water spirits, their fluid, bright orange undulations interspersed with playful turtles and rippling billabong plants.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2022
So they turned to the bdelloid Adineta ricciae, which was discovered in a small Australian billabong, or lake.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 15, 2012
The billabong is black from the tea trees that line the bank and when she flicks her legs to the surface she's a pale fish.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 6, 2010
This country was situated on a billabong 12 miles from Canobie, where Edward Palmer, as I have previously mentioned, had settled down.
From Reminiscences of Queensland 1862-1869 by W. H. (William Henry) Corfield
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
