wurley

Syllables: wur·ley/ˈwɜːliː/US/ˈwɝli/

wurley noun: an Australian indigenous shelter made from small branches with the leaves still attached.

Image: Skinner Prout, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

wurley (plural wurleys)

(Australia, South) An Australian indigenous shelter made from small branches with the leaves still attached.
- I took a walk amongst them [the First Nations of the Adelaide Plains] who were in their wurlies, saw a collection of naked boys and girls, men and women, either entirely or half so. They are quite innocent in this respect and the women think nothing of (stalking) bolt upright in perfect nudity.1844, Irene [Margaret] Watson, quoting William Anderson Cawthorne, “Naked: The Coming of the Cloth”, in Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law (Indigenous Peoples and the Law...
- They were good wurleys at the beginning of the winter, but towards the latter end of the winter they got turned out of them by the fleas—which they frequently do. They have been turned out of the last wurley some time in August; and I gave them a lot of reeds and tried to persuade them to build...1860 September 26, George Taplin, “Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council, upon ‘the Aborigines;’ together with Minutes of Evidence and Appendix. Ordered by the Legislative Council...
(Australia, South, broadly) A settlement made up of such shelters.
- But latterly they came in good numbers, and commenced a nightly system of annoyance by dancing their corroberies:[…]. Finding remonstrance of no avail, one evening, when they were all seated quietly at the wurlie [footnote: Encampment.], I fired a charge of small shot into the midst of them, and...1846, “a squatter” pseudonym of E. Lloyd, “Biographical Sketch”, in A Visit to the Antipodes: With Some Reminiscences of a Sojourn in Australia, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 65, Cornhill, →OCLC...

Examples of wurley in a sentence

They were good wurleys at the beginning of the winter, but towards the latter end of the winter they got turned out of them by the fleas—which they frequently do.1860 September 26, George Taplin, “Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council, upon ‘the Aborigines;’ together with Minutes...
A woman is supposed to signify her consent to the marriage by carrying fire to her husband's wurley [footnote: This word wurley is from the language of the Adelaide tribe.1874, George Taplin, “Social Customs”, in The Narrinyeri: An Account of the Tribes of South Australian Aborigines Inhabiting the Country...
After hunting through the forest into the afternoon I came to the wurley that had inside it a coolamon and a possum-skin cape, a club, a hatchet with a metal head, and a knife with a horn handle.2012, Noel Beddoe, The Yalda Crossing, St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, →ISBN:

Synonyms of wurley

Forms of wurley

plural	wurleys
alternative form	wurlie
alternative form	wurly

Origin of wurley

Possibly from Kaurna.

Questions about wurley

What does wurley mean?: Wurley means an Australian indigenous shelter made from small branches with the leaves still attached.
How do you use wurley in a sentence?: They were good wurleys at the beginning of the winter, but towards the latter end of the winter they got turned out of them by the fleas—which they frequently do.
What part of speech is wurley?: Wurley is a noun.
How do you pronounce wurley?: Wurley is pronounced /ˈwɜːliː/ (UK).
What is the plural of wurley?: The plural of wurley is wurleys.

Words near wurley in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: wurley (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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

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