Word.ws English Dictionary

jumbuck

/d͡ʒɐmbɐk/

jumbuck noun: a sheep.

Noun

jumbuck (plural jumbucks)

  1. (Australia) A sheep.
    • Allan told them all that he thought necessary ; but, as he did not know what jumbucks were, he candidly said so.
      “Why, sheep, man, sheep! They are jumbucks in this country.”1855, William Howitt, A Boy's Adventures in the Wilds of Australia: or, Herbert's Note-Book, page 128
    • Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong,
      Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee.1895, “Waltzing Matilda”, Banjo Paterson (lyrics)

Forms of jumbuck

pluraljumbucks

Origin of jumbuck

Unknown, from pidgin, possibly from an Australian Aboriginal language, although it appears also to have moved from pidgin to Aboriginal. Numerous derivations have been proposed. * Mr A. Meston of Brisbane, in the Sydney Bulletin of 18 April 1896, cited Aboriginal words jimba, jombock (also jombok), dombock and dumbog, all meaning "white mist preceding a shower," which a flock of sheep supposedly resembles. * Charles Harpur in a handwritten footnote in his papers cites Aboriginal word junbuc or jimbuc (his handwriting is unclear), "a kind of kangaroo or wallaby", and states that the aborigines of the Hunter region call the sheep thus for the hairiness of one and the wooliness of the other. * Also suggested is jumbock ("to communicate"). * An English derivation is suggested in a corruption of the phrase "jump up".

Questions about jumbuck

What does jumbuck mean?
Jumbuck means a sheep.
What part of speech is jumbuck?
Jumbuck is a noun.
How do you pronounce jumbuck?
Jumbuck is pronounced /d͡ʒɐmbɐk/.
What is the plural of jumbuck?
The plural of jumbuck is jumbucks.

Words near jumbuck in the dictionary

  1. jumbos
  2. jumbotron
  3. jumbotrons
  4. jumbrella
  5. jumbrellas
  6. jumbuck
  7. jumbucks
  8. Jumbuk
  9. Jumbunna
  10. jumby
  11. jumby bean

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: jumbuck (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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