Definitions

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

  • noun A large Australian crane (Grus rubicunda) with a bare greenish head and a red stripe around the neck. It is known for its elaborate courtship dance.

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

  • noun An Australian crane

Etymologies

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

[From Kamilaroi (Pama-Nyungan language of southeast Australia) burralga or a kindred source in other Pama-Nyungan languages of southeast Australia .]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Gamilaraay burralga.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word brolga.

Examples

  • Later we went out to a local bilabong to watch the birds -- I'd said I'd never seen a brolga.

    JOURNAL 22 AUGUST 1998 Alex Allan 2009

  • The aboriginal legend is that a brolga had been promised in marriage by her parents to a pelican.

    JOURNAL 22 AUGUST 1998 Alex Allan 2009

  • I could still feel a knot of scar tissue, a souvenir of the brolga attack years earlier.

    Steve and Me Terri Irwin 2007

  • He had a brolga as a friend, a large bird that he called Brolly.

    Steve and Me Terri Irwin 2007

  • I could still feel a knot of scar tissue, a souvenir of the brolga attack years earlier.

    Steve and Me Terri Irwin 2007

  • He had a brolga as a friend, a large bird that he called Brolly.

    Steve and Me Terri Irwin 2007

  • In 1996 Archibald and Matthiessen traveled to the Gulf of Carpentaria to observe Australia's only two crane species, the sarus and the brolga, or "native companion," so called because of its close association with Australia's Aboriginal people.

    Birds Out of Time Flannery, Tim 2002

  • The synergy between the brolga and Aborigines is intriguing, and has evolved over some 45,000 years.

    Birds Out of Time Flannery, Tim 2002

  • The brolga has a taste for dancing; flocks of this bird may be seen solemnly going through quadrilles and lancers -- of their own invention -- on the plains.

    Peeps At Many Lands: Australia Frank Fox 1917

  • The brolga, or native companion, is a handsome Australian bird of the crane family.

    Peeps At Many Lands: Australia Frank Fox 1917

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.