Meaning and Origin
What does the name Australia mean? Keep reading to find the user submitted meanings, dictionary definitions, and more.
User Submitted Origins
User Submitted Meanings
- 2 people from the United States and Sweden agree the name Australia is of Australian / Latin origin and means "South".
- A user from Philippines says the name Australia is of Latin origin and means "Southern Land".
- A nation occupying the whole of the Australian continent; Aboriginal tribes are thought to have migrated from southeastern Asia 20,000 years ago; first Europeans were British convicts sent there as a penal colony
- The smallest continent; between the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean
First attested 16th century, from Latin terra austrālis incōgnita (“unknown southern land”), from auster (“the south wind”). Used also in 1693 (quotation below). Popularised by Matthew Flinders in 1814 (quotation below).
Distantly cognate to Austria – same Proto-Indo-European root, but via German where it retained the earlier sense of “east” rather than “south”.
See also Terra Australis.
- A country in Oceania. Official name: Commonwealth of Australia.
- (geology) The continent of Australia-New Guinea. New Guinea and the intervening islands are also on the Australian tectonic plate and are thus geologically considered part of the continent.
Australia was also found in the following language(s): Albanian, Asturian, Basque, Central Huasteca Nahuatl, Finnish, Galician, Ido, Indonesian, Interlingua, Italian, Latin, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, and Swahili