First recorded in 1835–45; from Ganay or Kurnai (Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in Gippsland, Victoria), recorded as mai-mai “camp, hut”
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This evening I camped very comfortably in a mia-mia, about eleven miles from the depot.
From Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia by Wills, William John
King had already buried the rest of the field-books near the mia-mia.
From The Red True Story Book by Ford, H. J. (Henry Justice)
On again next morning to another of the native camps; but, finding it empty, the wanderers took possession of the best mia-mia, and Wills and King were sent out to collect nardoo.
From The Red True Story Book by Ford, H. J. (Henry Justice)
But the devil-devil came and sat down by King Jimmie's side one night, so he, too, moved out across the Old Man border, and the mia-mia rotted into the ground and the grass grew there.
From Over the Sliprails by Lawson, Henry
A woodchopper returning from his work told us that he found on a hill, some distance away, a rude mia-mia or wind shelter made of the branches of a wild cherry tree.
From The Land of the Kangaroo Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent by Knox, Thomas Wallace
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.
