Definitions

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

  • noun A member of the indigenous or earliest known population of a region; a native.
  • noun A member of any of the indigenous peoples of Australia.
  • noun The flora and fauna native to a geographic area.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of the aborigines (which see); an aboriginal. Also called aborigen, aborigin.

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

  • noun an indigenous person who was born in a particular place
  • noun a dark-skinned member of a race of people living in Australia when Europeans arrived

Etymologies

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

[Back-formation from pl. aborigines (taken as aborigine + -s), from Latin aborīginēs, original inhabitants (folk etymology of the name of a pre-Roman tribe of Italy) : ab, from; see ab– + orīgine, ablative of orīgō, beginning; see origin.]

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