| 释义 |
bunyip|ˈbʌnjɪp|
Also bunyup.
1. The Aboriginal name of a fabulous monster inhabiting the rushy swamps and lagoons in the interior of Australia. Also attrib.
1848W. Westgarth Australia Felix 391 Certain large fossil bones..have been referred by the natives..to a huge animal of extraordinary appearance, called in some districts the Bunyup, in others the Kianpraty, which they assert to be still alive. 1888Athenæum 14 Jan. 47/2 There are plenty of sea-gods, little better than salt-water kelpies or marine bunyips. 1891Coo-ee 275 When a black fellow disappears, it is generally understood that the Bunyip has got hold of him. 1894A. Robertson Nuggets, etc. 61 A weird boom, from bittern or bunyip, came from the swamp. 1916J. B. Cooper Coo-oo-ee! xiv. 199 Were not chivalrous men in these venal days as extinct as the bunyip? 1936M. Franklin All that Swagger i. 7 The wild Murrumbidgee sinking into the Bunyip Hole..would dissolve.
2. An impostor. Hence attrib. Obs.
1852Mundy Antipodes (1858) ix. 215 Bunyip became, and remains a Sydney synonyme for impostor, pretender, humbug, and the like. 1853W. C. Wentworth in H. Parkes Fifty Years Austral. Hist. (1892) I. 41 A mushroom, a Brummagem, a bunyip aristocracy. |