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goanna

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English

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Varanus varius (common goanna)

Etymology

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A respelling in Australia of guana, from iguana.[1] Rhyming slang sense rhyming on colloquial pronunciation 'pianner'.[2]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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goanna (plural goannas)

  1. Any of various monitor lizards native to Australia.
    • 1832, Coroner's Inquest, November 15, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, p. 3:
      Four goannas ran up the tree, and the animals of the bush had preyed so very lavishly on the remains of mortality that the thorax and other parts of the neck, together with various portions of flesh from the body, were missing.
    • 1849, The Ring, April 21, Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer, p. 2:
      Hello! There's a goanna; that's a good sized one; but nothing to the one that I tumbled over when I was coming from the Big River.
    • 2022, Meg Mooney, Northern Territory Literary Awards, page 33:
      I'll think of how the kids come alive walking around sandplains / reading tracks, looking for goannas, digging up witchetty grubs / collecting berries, branches of bush medicines.
  2. (Australia, rhyming slang) A piano.

Hyponyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ 2001, Susan Butler, The Dinkum Dictionary : The Origins of Australian Words, Text Publishing, →ISBN.
  2. ^ 2004, James Lambert, The Macquarie Slang Dictionary, Sydney: Macquarie Library.

Anagrams

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