Definitions

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

  • noun any of several bluish black fruit-eating birds of Australia of the genus Strepera having a bell-like call.

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

  • noun Any of the three species, and several subspecies, of large, mainly black, predatory passerine birds in the genus Strepera, of the family Artamidae, endemic to Australia.

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

  • noun bluish black fruit-eating bird with a bell-like call

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Probably from Yagara garrawaŋ, ultimately onomatopoeic.

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Examples

  • A black currawong perched on it was examining him with its yellow eyes, and Billy remembered the hole in the chicken wire and the lovely swirl of black feathers and fluffy gray down around the rent fence.

    Hunting the Thylacine Geoffrey Fox 2009

  • A black currawong perched on it was examining him with its yellow eyes, and Billy remembered the hole in the chicken wire and the lovely swirl of black feathers and fluffy gray down around the rent fence.

    Hunting the Thylacine 2009

  • But he didn't feel like shooting the currawong that was perched just a few feet away from him.

    Hunting the Thylacine Geoffrey Fox 2009

  • But he didn't feel like shooting the currawong that was perched just a few feet away from him.

    Hunting the Thylacine 2009

  • The Lord Howe Island currawong Strepera graculina crissalis is relatively common in the southern mountains, with lesser number found in the north.

    Lord Howe Island Group, Australia 2008

  • Twenty-one species of native birds regularly utilize rainforest habitat, including the grey goshawk (Accipiter novaehollandiae), brown scrubwren (Sericornis humilis), and black currawong (Strepera fulignosa).

    Tasmanian temperate rain forests 2008

  • It sounds like a historic farming implement 'Father was wielding the currawong while mother churned the goat's milk' - any chance of a pic?

    How can you expect me to work, with a view like this? StyleyGeek 2007

  • There are four extant endemic landbirds, including two species and two subspecies: the relatively abundant Lord Howe white-eye (Zosterops tephropleurus), the Lord Howe Island woodhen, Lord Howe Island golden whistler (Pachycephala pectoralis contempta), and the Lord Howe Island currawong (Strepera graculina crissalis).

    Lord Howe Island subtropical forests 2007

  • cuppa: cup of tea currawong: ravenlike bird dag: goofy person daks: trousers dam: pool, pond, or water hole

    Steve and Me Terri Irwin 2007

  • cuppa: cup of tea currawong: ravenlike bird dag: goofy person daks: trousers dam: pool, pond, or water hole

    Steve and Me Terri Irwin 2007

Comments

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  • "... marked with a black eye that was more yellow than black and from this spectacular bed of bruised flesh the eye itself, sand-irritated, bloodshot, as wild as a currawong's, stared out at a landscape in which the tops of fences protruded from windswept sand."

    —Peter Carey, Illywhacker, 380–381

    April 17, 2009

  • What wongs does it cure?

    September 11, 2011