Likely onomatopoeic in reference to the sound made by the instrument, or the words spoken into the instrument to play it.
The earliest known description of the instrument was in 1829 by Captain Collet Barker, in which it was described as making the sound didoggerry whoan. In 2002, Lonergan proposed that the term could derive from Irish dúdaire dubh (“black hummer”) or Scottish Gaelic dùdaire dùth (“native piper”), though this seems to be coincidental, since there is no corroborating evidence and the terms would refer to the player (rather than the instrument itself).
Audio (General Australian): | (file) |
didgeridoo (plural didgeridoos)
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didgeridoo (third-person singular simple present didgeridoos, present participle didgeridooing, simple past and past participle didgeridooed)
Borrowed from English didgeridoo.
didgeridoo m (plural didgeridoos, diminutive didgeridootje n)
didgeridoo m (plural didgeridoos)
Unadapted borrowing from English didgeridoo.
didgeridoo m (plural didgeridoos)
According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.
didgeridoo c
nominative | genitive | ||
---|---|---|---|
singular | indefinite | didgeridoo | didgeridoos |
definite | didgeridoon | didgeridoons | |
plural | indefinite | didgeridooer | didgeridooers |
definite | didgeridooerna | didgeridooernas |