Word.ws English Dictionary

drop bear

/dɹɒp bɛə/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/dɹɔp bɛː(ɹ)/

drop bear noun: a fictional Australian marsupial in the form of a large, carnivorous koala said to fall upon its prey from treetops.

drop bear: a fictional Australian marsupial in the form of a large, carnivorous koala said to fall upon its...
Image: Yamavu, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

drop bear (plural drop bears)

  1. (humorous, kenning) A fictional Australian marsupial in the form of a large, carnivorous koala said to fall upon its prey from treetops.
    • You don't know what drop bears are? Fair dink, don't they teach you blokes anything? Fancy sending a bloke to a place like this and not telling him about drop bears.1995, John Marsden, The Third Day, the Frost (TCPA Tomorrow Series; 3), Sydney: Pan Macmillan; republished as A Killing Frost, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, 1999...
    • ‘Drop-bears? Who’s been feedin’ you a line about drop-bears?’ / ‘What do you mean?’ / ‘There’s no such thing as drop-bears! Someone must’ve seen you coming, mate!’1998, Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent (Discworld; 22), London: Doubleday; republished London: Corgi, 2013, page 219

Forms of drop bear

pluraldrop bears
alternative formdrop-bear
alternative formdropbear

Questions about drop bear

What does drop bear mean?
Drop bear means a fictional Australian marsupial in the form of a large, carnivorous koala said to fall upon its prey from treetops.
What part of speech is drop bear?
Drop bear is a noun.
How do you pronounce drop bear?
Drop bear is pronounced /dɹɒp bɛə/ (UK).
What is the plural of drop bear?
The plural of drop bear is drop bears.

Words near drop bear in the dictionary

  1. drop away
  2. drop back
  3. drop backs
  4. drop bar
  5. drop bars
  6. drop bear
  7. drop bears
  8. drop behind
  9. drop bolt
  10. drop bolts
  11. drop box

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: drop bear (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-drop bear.wav.

Cite this entry: “drop bear.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drop_bear. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.