aboriginal

comparative more aboriginal · superlative most aboriginal

1. First according to historical or scientific records; original; indigenous; primitive.First known use First attested in the mid 17th century.

   Green in the Church-yard, beautiful and green; / […] / And mantled o'er with aboriginal turf / And everlasting flowers.

   1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion, Longman et al., page 277

   2 more examples

   Tashtego's long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones, and black rounding eyes— […] all this sufficiently proclaimed him an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters, who, in quest of the great New England moose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal forests of the main.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Knights and Squires”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 131

   Said Wailan Wangko to Wangi, "Take this ginger and go and blow it on the skulls and the ears of these two images, that they may be able to speak; call the man Adam and the woman Ewa." In this narrative the names of the man and woman betray Christian or Mohammedan influence, but the rest of the story may be aboriginal.

   1918, James George Frazer, Folk-Lore In The Old Testament, volume 1, page 14

   Synonyms: ancient, autochthonous, earliest, endemic, first, indigenous, native, original

2. Living in a land before colonization by foreigners.First known use First attested in the late 17th century.

   Had a vast knowledge of the aboriginal tribes; was, in spite of his juniority, the greatest authority on the aboriginal Gullals.

   1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 37

   1 more example

   Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan?

   1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 2

3. Alternative letter-case form of AboriginalFirst known use First attested in the late 18th century.

plural aboriginals

1. An animal or plant native to a region.First known use First attested in the mid 18th century.

   It may be welldoubted whether this frog is an aboriginal of these islands.

   1839, Charles Darwin, Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle

2. Alternative letter-case form of AboriginalFirst known use First attested in the mid 18th century.

   Every one of the groups of islands in the Pacific, many of them only a few days' sail from Australia, have their own customs, religious, political and social, and yet Australia has none, and the aboriginals have imbibed nothing from their intercourse with other nationalities.

   1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 244

alternative aboriginal

1. not comparableOf or pertaining to Australian Aboriginal peoples, or their languages.First known use First attested in the 19th century.

   Academics who study Aboriginal languages are [...] contributing to Man’s search for knowledge, a search that interests most people even if they are not personally involved in it.

   1991, Barry J. Blake, Australian Aboriginal Languages: A General Introduction, page 75

   1 more example

   I am under no illusions about my mixed-race status; I know I am mixed-race, but with the Aboriginal population being only 3 per cent, with my family being survivors of genocide, I have made my decision.

   2021 November 7, Claire [G.] Coleman, “Not quite blak enough: ‘The people who think I am too white to be Aboriginal are all white’”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 03 Dec 2021

   Synonyms: aboriginal, Aborigine, aborigine, aboriginal, Native, native, Native American, First Nations

2. not comparableAlternative letter-case form of aboriginal.

plural Aboriginals · alternative aboriginal

1. potentially offensiveAn Aboriginal inhabitant of Australia or other land.First known use First attested in the 19th century.
2. Alternative letter-case form of aboriginal.

alternative aboriginal

1. Any of the native languages spoken by Australian aborigines.