bunyip
Americannoun
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a mythical creature of Aboriginal legend said to inhabit water and watercourses.
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an impostor.
adjective
noun
Etymology
Origin of bunyip
First recorded in 1840–50; from Wergaia (an Australian Aboriginal language of the Wimmera area, Victoria) banib
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 mysterious bunyip, the legendary beastie that lives at the bottom of the placid Australian billabong, is less strange to Australians than Herbert Vere Evatt.
From Time Magazine Archive
“Then you and I will have to meet the bunyip, Joe,” said the doctor.
From Bunyip Land A Story of Adventure in New Guinea by Browne, Gordon
“Big bunyip—no brown fellow—big black bunyip debble, debble!”
From Bunyip Land A Story of Adventure in New Guinea by Browne, Gordon
They went as swiftly as a motor-car disappears from view—I believe they reckoned they'd seen the bunyip.
From A Little Bush Maid by Bruce, Mary Grant
And I thought I had found the back of beyond, where I would never see anyone more civilized than a bunyip!
From A Little Bush Maid by Bruce, Mary Grant
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.
