mulga

Noun

mulga (plural mulgas)

1. (Australia) Any of a number of small acacia trees, especially Acacia aneura, forming dense scrub in dry inland areas of Australia.
   • Ford (1969) points out that it is distributed from southern Northern Territory and northern South Australia west through mulga country of the Gibson and Great Victoria Deserts to the coast of Western Australia.1981, Joseph Michael Forshaw, William T. Cooper, Australian Parrots, page 246
   • This paper describes a preliminary field experiment designed to examine the effect of supplementing sheep fed mulga with several proprietary licks and a more comprehensive field experiment to evaluate the effect of the most promising lick fed with cottonseed meal.1983, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock, The Queensland Journal of Agriculture and Animal Science, Volumes 40-42, page 68
2. (Australia, preceded by definite article) Any region where mulga is the predominant vegetation.
3. (Australia, colloquial, in-compounds) The outback.
   • I'd forgotten for a moment you are not all mulga-bred […]1901, Jack Mathieu, “That Day at Boiling Downs”, in Australian Ballads & Short Stories, Penguin, published 2003, page 263
4. Something made from the wood of a mulga tree.