Boomerang

How to spell boomerang

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce boomerang

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does boomerang mean?

1. nounA flat, curved throwing stick, traditionally one designed to return to the thrower when thrown correctly.
2. verbTo come back and harm or affect the person who started something, in the way a thrown stick returns.

Boomerang in a sentence

• noun

  The museum displayed a hand-painted boomerang from northern Australia.

• verb

  The cruel rumour can boomerang and damage the person who spread it.

• noun

  He could never get the boomerang to fly back to him on the beach.

• verb

  A badly judged price cut may boomerang and reduce overall profit.

Where does boomerang come from?

Language of origin: Other

Boomerang comes from an Aboriginal Australian language, almost certainly Dharug (also spelled Dharuk), once spoken around the area of modern Sydney. Early colonial records from the 1820s show various attempts at the spelling, including 'bou-mar-rang' and 'wo-mur-rang', as English speakers tried to capture an unfamiliar sound. The word named the curved wooden throwing stick used by Aboriginal peoples, the most famous kind being the returning variety that arcs back toward the thrower. English settled on the spelling 'boomerang' and quickly extended it as a verb and a metaphor for any plan or insult that comes back to hurt the person who launched it. Because the word is a faithful borrowing rather than a Latin or Greek build, its spelling has no helpful root logic; the doubled 'o' and the final 'rang' simply have to be learned. It remains one of a small handful of everyday English words taken directly from an Australian Aboriginal tongue, alongside 'kangaroo' and 'koala'.

How the word is built

• boomerang (a single indivisible borrowing from the Dharug Aboriginal language; not built from English prefix, root, or suffix)