blackfellow

English

Alternative forms

• blackfella, blackfellah, blackfeller, black fellow, blackfulla

Etymology

From black +‎ fellow.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈblakfɛləʊ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

blackfellow (plural blackfellows)

1. (Australia, now usually considered offensive, ethnic slur) A (male) Australian Aborigine. [from 19th c.]

   Coordinate term: whitefellow

   • 1842 February 16, The Inquirer, Perth, page 5, column 2:

     "Me like my country — no much too hot, no much too cold. By and bye, white fellow come — soldier-man come. White fellow say, this our land, that our land — ALL country our land. Black fellow say no! my country no white fellow's country, and black fellow take spear.

   • 1985, Peter Carey, Illywhacker, Faber & Faber, published 2003, page 40:

     He was squatting on the ground like a blackfellow, quiet and still and cunning.

   • 2000, Daryl Tonkin, Carolyn Landon, Jackson's Track: Memoir of a Dreamtime Place, page 256:

     It was as if the blackfellas were their property, and the Board could do with them as they saw fit.

   • 2002, James Roberts, “At the Bar”, in Rebekah Clarkson, editor, Forked Tongues: A Delicious Anthology of Poetry and Prose, page 29:

     A blackfella and a whitefella are sitting at the bar. The whitefella says to the blackfella eh boss, whadya reckon?
     The blackfella says since you ask, I consider it a metaphor of the historic case of the Coorong massacre of 1840.

   • 2007, Noel Olive, Enough is Enough: A History of the Pilbara Mob‎^[1], page 212:

     Most police officers had no blackfella cultural background, no knowledge of Aboriginal priorities in life, yet they were the power in the town.

Usage notes

• The word has been reclaimed to some extent by Indigenous Australians to describe themselves, but its use by other groups is now usually considered racially offensive.