AUSTRALIA

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A nation occupying the whole of the Australian continent; Aboriginal tribes are thought to have migrated from southeastern Asia 20,000 years ago; first Europeans were British convicts sent there as a penal colony

Synonyms:

Australia; Commonwealth of Australia

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Instance hypernyms:

country; land; state (the territory occupied by a nation)

Meronyms (parts of "Australia"):

Great Australian Bight (a wide bay of the Indian Ocean in southern Australia; notorious for storms)

Eyre Peninsula (a peninsula of southern Australia)

Eyre; Lake Eyre (a shallow salt lake in south central Australia about 35 feet below sea level; the largest lake in the country and the lowest point on the continent)

Cape York Peninsula (a peninsula in Queensland in northeastern Australia between the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Coral Sea)

Cape York (the northern tip of Cape York Peninsula at the Torres Strait; the northernmost point of the Australian mainland)

Great Barrier Reef (the largest coral reef in the world; in the Coral Sea off the northeastern coast of Australia)

Australian Alps (a range of mountains in Australia that forms the southern end of the Great Dividing Range)

Simpson Desert (a desert region of central Australia)

Great Victoria Desert (a desert region in south central Australia to the north of the Nullarbor Plain)

Great Sandy Desert (a desert region in northwestern Australia to the north of the Gibson Desert)

Gibson Desert (a desert area in western Australia)

Nullarbor Plain (a vast arid plain of southern Australia stretching inland from the Great Australian Bight; has sparse vegetation and no surface water and is almost uninhabited; the site of a major rocket research center)

Norfolk Island (an island territory of Australia in the Pacific Ocean off the eastern coast of Australia; formerly a British penal colony)

Northern Territory (a territory in north central Australia)

Western Australia (a state containing the western third of Australia)

South Australia (a state in south central Australia)

Tasmania (an Australian state on the island of Tasmania)

Victoria (a state in southeastern Australia)

New South Wales (an Australian state in southeastern Australia)

Queensland (a state in northeastern Australia)

Australian state (one of the several states constituting Australia)

Australian capital; Canberra; capital of Australia (the capital of Australia; located in southeastern Australia)

Namoi; Namoi River (a river in southeastern Australia that flows generally northwest to join the Darling River)

Eastern Highlands; Great Dividing Range (a mountain range running along the eastern coast of Australia)

Carpentaria; Gulf of Carpentaria (a wide shallow inlet of the Arafura Sea in northern Australia)

Murray; Murray River (a southeast Australian river; flows westward and then south into the Indian Ocean at Adelaide)

Murrumbidgee; Murrumbidgee River (a river of southeastern Australia; flows westward into the Murray River)

Meronyms (members of "Australia"):

Aussie; Australian (a native or inhabitant of Australia)

Domain member region:

perisher (bounder)

returning officer (the official in each electorate who holds the election and returns the results)

sundowner (a tramp who habitually arrives at sundown)

swagger; swaggie; swagman (an itinerant Australian laborer who carries his personal belongings in a bundle as he travels around in search of work)

Keith Rupert Murdoch; Murdoch; Rupert Murdoch (United States publisher (born in Australia in 1931))

Cercospora kopkei; yellow spot fungus (fungus causing yellow spot (a sugarcane disease in Australia))

gilgai soil (soil in the melon holes of Australia)

bonzer (remarkable or wonderful)

sealed (having been paved)

mate (informal term for a friend of the same sex)

pom; pommy (a disparaging term for a British person)

billabong (a stagnant pool of water in the bed of a stream that flows intermittently)

plonk (a cheap wine of inferior quality)

Aboriginal Australian; Australian (the Austronesian languages spoken by Australian aborigines)

tucker-bag (a bag used for carrying food)

swag (a bundle containing the personal belongings of a swagman)

lagerphone (an Australian percussion instrument used for playing bush music; a long stick with bottle caps nailed loosely to it; played by hitting it with a stick or banging it on the ground)

boomerang; throw stick; throwing stick (a curved piece of wood; when properly thrown will return to thrower)

walkabout (nomadic excursions into the bush made by an Aborigine)

Holonyms ("Australia" is a part of...):

Australia (the smallest continent; between the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean)

Holonyms ("Australia" is a member of...):

British Commonwealth; Commonwealth of Nations (an association of nations consisting of the United Kingdom and several former British colonies that are now sovereign states but still pay allegiance to the British Crown)

British Empire (a former empire consisting of Great Britain and all the territories under its control; reached its greatest extent at the end of World War I; it included the British Isles, British West Indies, Canada, British Guiana; British West Africa, British East Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand)

Derivation:

Australian (of or relating to or characteristic of Australia or its inhabitants or its languages)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The smallest continent; between the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Instance hypernyms:

continent (one of the large landmasses of the earth)

Meronyms (parts of "Australia"):

Eyre; Lake Eyre (a shallow salt lake in south central Australia about 35 feet below sea level; the largest lake in the country and the lowest point on the continent)

Eyre Peninsula (a peninsula of southern Australia)

Great Australian Bight (a wide bay of the Indian Ocean in southern Australia; notorious for storms)

Great Barrier Reef (the largest coral reef in the world; in the Coral Sea off the northeastern coast of Australia)

Eastern Highlands; Great Dividing Range (a mountain range running along the eastern coast of Australia)

Moreton Bay (an arm of the Tasman Sea forming a bay to the east of Brisbane)

Murray; Murray River (a southeast Australian river; flows westward and then south into the Indian Ocean at Adelaide)

Murrumbidgee; Murrumbidgee River (a river of southeastern Australia; flows westward into the Murray River)

Darling; Darling River (an Australian river; tributary of the Murray River)

Cape York Peninsula (a peninsula in Queensland in northeastern Australia between the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Coral Sea)

Cape York (the northern tip of Cape York Peninsula at the Torres Strait; the northernmost point of the Australian mainland)

Australian Alps (a range of mountains in Australia that forms the southern end of the Great Dividing Range)

Australian Desert; Great Australian Desert (general name given to all desert areas in Australia)

Tasmania (an island off the southeastern coast of Australia)

Australia; Commonwealth of Australia (a nation occupying the whole of the Australian continent; Aboriginal tribes are thought to have migrated from southeastern Asia 20,000 years ago; first Europeans were British convicts sent there as a penal colony)

Instance hyponyms:

Carpentaria; Gulf of Carpentaria (a wide shallow inlet of the Arafura Sea in northern Australia)

Holonyms ("Australia" is a part of...):

eastern hemisphere; orient (the hemisphere that includes Eurasia and Africa and Australia)

southern hemisphere (the hemisphere to the south of the equator)

Credits

Context examples:

A country in the Pacific, comprised of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, east of Australia.

(New Caledonia, NCI Thesaurus)

An herbal remedy derived from the seeds of the evergreen tree Strychnos nux-vomica, a native to southeast Asia and northern Australia.

(Nux Vomica Seed, NCI Thesaurus)

These were formerly called the Australia antigen.

(Hepatitis B Virus HBsAg Surface Protein Antigen, NCI Thesaurus)

Provider: ES Cell International Pte Ltd., Melbourne, Australia.

(ES01, NCI Thesaurus)

Carbadox is a mutagen/carcinogen and has been banned in Canada, Australia, and the European Union.

(Carbadox, NCI Thesaurus)

A group of islands in the Indian Ocean, south of Indonesia, about halfway from Australia to Sri Lanka.

(Cocos (Keeling) Islands, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

A group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, east of Australia, between Tonga and French Polynesia.

(Cook Islands, NCI Thesaurus)

Twelve participating institutions are located in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

(Cooperative Family Registry, NCI Thesaurus)

Nursed her as a baby, and came with her to England when they first left Australia, eighteen months ago.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Next day we were picked up by the brig Hotspur, bound for Australia, whose captain found no difficulty in believing that we were the survivors of a passenger ship which had foundered.