Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The common name of the Australian grass-tree, Xanthorrhæa arborea, etc., a juncaceous plant with a thick blackened trunk and a terminal tuft of wiry, grass-like leaves.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Australia, obsolete An Aboriginal boy or servant.
  • noun Australia, informal Any plant in the genus Xanthorrhoea, native to Australia.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From black +‎ boy. For sense (plant of genus Xanthorrhoea): from a supposed resemblance of the plant to an Aboriginal boy holding an upright spear.

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Examples

  • | Page 59: "blackboy" changed to "black boy" (Knowing I had no black |

    Reminiscences of Queensland 1862-1869 1873

  • Both he and Scott had brought their bridles with them, and the blackboy, they knew, had his as well, and they were hoping that at any moment they might meet him driving the horses back to the camp.

    "Chinkie's Flat" 1904 Louis Becke 1884

  • Never for one instant did Grainger think of questioning the judgment of his tried and trusted blackboy, when, as they came to the stream, he jumped off his horse and motioned to his master to do the same.

    "Chinkie's Flat" 1904 Louis Becke 1884

  • Grainger, who had the most implicit faith in the judgment of his blackboy, now began to fear that the horses, instead of making for the scrub, had gone towards the mountains, where it would perhaps be most difficult to get them.

    "Chinkie's Flat" 1904 Louis Becke 1884

  • The blackboy had stripped himself of every article of clothing, except the remnants of his shirt, which he had tied round his loins; over it was strapped his leather belt with its cartridge pouch.

    "Chinkie's Flat" 1904 Louis Becke 1884

  • The glaucus-leaved York blackboy is, however, the most important, and grows thirty feet in height without

    The Bushman — Life in a New Country Edward Wilson Landor 1844

  • The first to which Mr. Drummond alludes is the blackboy, of which there are several varieties.

    The Bushman — Life in a New Country Edward Wilson Landor 1844

  • The natives are particularly fond of the blackboy, whilst its sound old flower-stalks furnish them with the means of obtaining a light by friction.

    The Bushman — Life in a New Country Edward Wilson Landor 1844

  • Tue, 02/02/2010 - 13: 20 - Geraldo A blackboy is like a carboy only it's full of black tar heroin.

    Crooks and Liars 2010

  • Among the more interesting of these are blackboy, also called grass-tree, a black-boled liliaceous tree with a spearlike flowerstalk and reedlike leaves resembling fuzzy hair or a grass skirt (but in New Zealand the same word refers to a type of peach), and black swan, a descriptive term.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol VIII No 3 1981

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