Botany Bay

proper noun

A bay of New South Wales, south of Sydney Cove, Australia; the site of a landing by explorer Captain James Cook and later of the First Fleet, and originally planned to be the site of the first penal colony in Australia.

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Meanings

proper noun
  1. A bay of New South Wales, south of Sydney Cove, Australia; the site of a landing by explorer Captain James Cook and later of the First Fleet, and originally planned to be the site of the first penal colony in Australia.
  2. The penal colony, actually established at Sydney Cove, which developed into the now city of Sydney.

    If everybody got their deserts, Bulstrode might have had to say his prayers at Botany Bay.

    1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter LXXI, in Middlemarch […], volume IV, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book VII, page 149
    2 more examples

    "Do you come from West Lynne?" / Yes. "Horrid place. Mrs. Latimer took a house there soon after I went to live with her. I'd rather she'd taken it at Botany Bay."

    1861, Ellen Wood, chapter 32, in East Lynne

    Christopher Coney was silenced, and as he could get no public sympathy, he mumbled his feelings to himself: "Be dazed, if I loved my country half as well as the young feller do, I'd live by claning my neighbour's pigsties afore I'd go away! For my part I've no more love for my country than I have for Botany Bay!"

    1886, Thomas Hardy, chapter 8, in The Mayor of Casterbridge
  3. A former local government area in New South Wales (abolished 2016).
  4. Two bays in Antarctica.
  5. A place in the United Kingdom:
    1. A hamlet in Rosliston parish, South Derbyshire district, Derbyshire, England (OS grid ref SK2615).
    2. A hamlet in the borough of Enfield, Greater London, England (OS grid ref TQ2999).
    3. A tiny bay near Cliftonville and Kingsgate, Thanet district, Kent, England (OS grid ref TR3971).
    4. A commercial area in the town of Chorley, Lancashire, England (OS grid ref SD5918).
    5. A hamlet in Wye Valley community, Monmouthshire, Wales (OS grid ref SO5202).
  6. UKobsoleteslangWorcester College, Oxford.

Origin

The bay was named by explorer James Cook for the variety of plants observed near the shore. (Worcester College): So called from its remote situation.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

Botany Bay. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Botany%20Bay

MLA

“Botany Bay.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Botany%20Bay. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Botany Bay,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Botany%20Bay.

Source: Botany Bay on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.