Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A dead-end channel extending from the main stream of a river.
  • noun A streambed filled with water only in the rainy season.
  • noun A stagnant pool or backwater.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In Australia, a stream which flows away from the main stream (in some cases returning to it at a farther point); an effluent. Also billibong, billybong.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun In Australia, a blind channel leading out from a river; -- sometimes called an anabranch. This is the sense of the word as used in the Public Works Department; but the term has also been locally applied to mere back-waters forming stagnant pools and to certain water channels arising from a source.

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

  • noun Australia A stagnant pool of water.
  • noun A streambed that is only filled with water during the rainy season.
  • noun A channel that dead-ends which extends from the main part of a river.
  • noun An oxbow lake.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a branch of a river made by water flowing from the main stream only when the water level is high
  • noun a stagnant pool of water in the bed of a stream that flows intermittently

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Wiradhuri (Pama-Nyungan language of southeast Australia) bilabaŋ, watercourse filled only after rain.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Wiradhuri bilabang

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Examples

  • A fossicker is one who goes along the river banks panning for gold, and a billabong is a water-hole or washing place.

    Australia Looks Ahead 1946

  • Police divers had been working their way through the billabong, which is about 25 metres wide at its widest point and around 800 metres long, at Kialla West, near Shepparton.

    The Australian | News | 2011

  • Keep her going! "and Billy kept her going to such purpose that by sun-up the billabong was a banker, Cheon was moving over the face of the earth with the buoyancy of a child's balloon, and Billy had five inches of rain to his credit.

    We of the Never-Never Jeannie Gunn 1915

  • At least tell us you were hit by a stray billabong and ended up in a coma, or you had a fight with a shark/croc/roo or something and you're only just able to hit the keys again.

    Procrastination 2010

  • "Scientists have discovered three new species of Australian dinosaur discovered in a prehistoric billabong in Western Queensland."

    Howard Hughes vs. the Murlocs greygirlbeast 2009

  • Here they are with their little dog, rowing on the billabong, not far from the pretty homestead on the far shore.

    Archive 2009-03-01 2009

  • The same rowing boat may be seen on the billabong to the left, this time carrying a party of five ladies, maybe some of Sophie Pearson's many younger sisters.

    Archive 2009-03-01 2009

  • It would be the same thing, a white person and another white person on the ticket. billabong

    Obama picks up superdelegate 2008

  • I just finished a draft of a novel, working title, "Waltzing Mathilda" - and yes there is a ghost and a billabong involved!

    Announcing new podcast: TwelfthPlanetCast girliejones 2010

  • If Hillary doesn't get the nomination, there is nothing preventing her from still running in the General Election in November, she just wouldn't be able to have the words "Democratic Party" by her name on the ballot. billabong

    Clinton (sort of) responds to Dean 2008

Comments

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  • An oxbow lake, river meander, or blind channel. Not a bad place to camp if you're waltzing matilda.

    February 7, 2007

  • "The beauty of those two words—Moonee Ponds—dawned on me. They made me think of a chain of quiet billabongs under a blurred moon."

    - From "Suburbia" by Helen Garner, p 22 in Everywhere I Look

    November 29, 2017