- kangaroo (n.)
[kangaroo 词源字典] - 1770, used by Capt. Cook and botanist Joseph Banks, supposedly an aborigine word from northeast Queensland, Australia, usually said to be unknown now in any native language. However, according to Australian linguist R.M.W. Dixon ("The Languages of Australia," Cambridge, 1980), the word probably is from Guugu Yimidhirr (Endeavour River-area Aborigine language) /gaNurru/ "large black kangaroo."
In 1898 the pioneer ethnologist W.E. Roth wrote a letter to the Australasian pointing out that gang-oo-roo did mean 'kangaroo' in Guugu Yimidhirr, but this newspaper correspondence went unnoticed by lexicographers. Finally the observations of Cook and Roth were confirmed when in 1972 the anthropologist John Haviland began intensive study of Guugu Yimidhirr and again recorded /gaNurru/. [Dixon]
Kangaroo court is American English, first recorded 1850 in a Southwestern context (also mustang court), from notion of proceeding by leaps.[kangaroo etymology, kangaroo origin, 英语词源] - macropod
- "A plant-eating marsupial mammal of an Australasian family that comprises the kangaroos and wallabies", Late 19th century: from modern Latin Macropodidae (plural), from macro- + Greek pous, pod- 'foot'.
- El Niño
- "An irregularly occurring and complex series of climatic changes affecting the equatorial Pacific region and beyond every few years, characterized by the appearance of unusually warm, nutrient-poor water off northern Peru and Ecuador, typically in late December. The effects of El Niño include reversal of wind patterns across the Pacific, drought in Australasia, and unseasonal heavy rain in South America", Spanish, literally 'the (Christ) child', because of the occurrence near Christmas.
- megapode
- "A large ground-dwelling Australasian and SE Asian bird that builds a large mound of debris to incubate its eggs by the heat of decomposition", Mid 19th century: from modern Latin Megapodius (genus name), from mega- 'large' + Greek pous, pod- 'foot'.
