aboriginally

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US/ˌæb.əˈɹɪd͡ʒ.n̩.ə.li/US/ˌæb.əˈɹɪd͡ʒ.ɪn.ə.li/

adverb

From or in the earliest known times.

First used First attested in the early 19th century.Scrabble 18

Meanings

adverbaboriginally (not comparable)
  1. not comparableFrom or in the earliest known times.First known use First attested in the early 19th century.

    […] man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.

    1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 58, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
    2 more examples

    […] aboriginally the horse must have inhabited countries annually covered with snow, for he long retains the instinct of scraping it away to get at the herbage beneath.

    1868, Charles Darwin, chapter 2, in The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. […], volume I, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 52 of 52-53

    […] music, like verse, can do rhythm but it is only poetry that can yoke words together in rhyme (sometimes, of course, and aboriginally, at the service of music).

    2006, Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, New York: Gotham, Part 2, Chapter 2, p. 145
  2. not comparableIn the period before contact with Europeans (especially with reference to peoples subjected to colonization).

    Xaymaca, as the island was aboriginally known, is situated in the Caribbean Sea […]

    1896, Allan Eric, “Buckra” Land: Two Weeks in Jamaica, Boston, Appendix
    2 more examples

    […] in the New World, where pots were never aboriginally shaped by turning, wheeled vehicles also were absent […]

    1973, Charles F. Hockett, chapter 31, in Man’s Place in Nature,, New York: McGraw-Hill, page 523

    The question is, was the disease [tuberculosis] present aboriginally in the New World, or was it introduced to Native Americans by European explorers?

    1986, Robert L. Blakely, David S. Mathews, “What Price Civilization?”, in Miles Richardson, Malcolm C. Webb, editors, The Burden of Being Civilized: An Anthropological Perspective on the Discontents of Civilization, Athens: University of Georgia Press, page 12
  3. Canadanot comparableBy indigenous Canadians (often capitalized in this sense).First known use First attested in the 1980s.

    These areas […] relate to the identity of Aboriginally predominant communities.

    2002, Bradford W. Morse with Robert K. Groves, Who Are Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples?, pages 209-210
    2 more examples

    All land subject to the claim becomes either Crown land or aboriginally-owned land.

    1987, Kate Irving, What Government Does in the Western Northwest Territories

    It appears that lack of funding and control led to the demise of this program, but that with further refinement the idea has merit especially within an Aboriginally-controlled justice system.

    1991, Jim Harding, An Annotated Bibliography of Aboriginal-controlled Justice Programs in Canada, page 80
  4. not comparableTo the utmost degree (modifying an adjective.)

    Dried apricots eaten with cake should be soaked and simmered first, eaten with cheese they should be aboriginally dry.

    1978, Iris Murdoch, chapter 3, in The Sea, the Sea, London: Chatto & Windus, pages 181–182
    3 more examples

    Though his rage against iniquity is aboriginally simple and childlike, and is certainly not always level-headed, it is never divorced from reason […]

    1920, Greville MacDonald, The Sanity of William Blake, London: George Allen and Unwin, page 24

    There is something aboriginally absurd in the idea of the old gentleman staring wild-eyed at his own legs; and half recalling something familiar about them; as if he were revisiting the landscape of his youth.

    1931, G. K. Chesterton, “Dickens at Christmas”, in Marie Smith, editor, The Spirit of Christmas: Stories, Poems, Essays, New York: Dodd, Mead, published 1985, page 77

    […] those travellers who did make the trip [to the Western Isles] returned with stories which made Scotland and the Scots sound as aboriginally exotic as shark-eating Eskimos or man-eating pygmies.

    2005, Bella Bathurst, chapter 5, in The Wreckers, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 152

    Synonyms: absolutely, thoroughly, utterly

Synonyms & antonyms

adverbTo the utmost degree (modifying an adjective.)

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

aboriginally. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/aboriginally

MLA

“aboriginally.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/aboriginally. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “aboriginally,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/aboriginally.

Source: aboriginally on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.