sugarbag

See also: sugar bag and sugar-bag

English

WOTD – 27 May 2021

Etymology

A sugarbag (sense 1) of sugar.

Wild honey or honeycomb is sometimes called “sugarbag” (sense 2) in Australia, a word originally used by Aboriginal Australians.

From sugar +‎ bag; sense 2 (“wild honey or honeycomb”) was originally a word used by Aboriginal Australians.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈʃʊɡəbæɡ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈʃʊɡɚbæɡ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: su‧gar‧bag

Noun

sugarbag (countable and uncountable, plural sugarbags)

1. (countable) A bag, typically made of cloth, for holding sugar.
   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 139:

     Bradly hung the fowl in a sugar-bag for to-morrow's dinner and set about grilling chops, with tomatoes stuffed with cheese and breadcrumbs in the pan.

   • 2017, Fiona Farrell, Decline and Fall on Savage Street, →ISBN, page 25:

     He took the reeking sack as if there were indeed huskies waiting to devour its contents and added it to his load: a sugarbag of provisions, a bottle of fresh water from the tap in the yard that went stright down to another invisible river that flowed far beneath their feet.

2. (uncountable, Australia) Wild honey or honeycomb.
   • 1980, Daisy Utemorrah, Visions of Mowanjum: Aboriginal Writings from the Kimberley, page 43:

     One day Djungun said to his wives, 'I will help you to hunt for sugarbag.'

   • 1993, Grace Koch, Harold Koch, Kaytetye Country: An Aboriginal History of the Barrow Creek Area:

     That way — north. And he tryin to go right to Akwerrkepentye. And he reckon he bin seein 'What's this one?' And he can hearem, you know. 'Ay, sugarbag, some one. Might be sugarbag here.' And he can hearem, 'Ah, yeah, sugarbag, all right.'

   • 1996, Records of the South Australian Museum, volumes 29-30, page 71:

     Two significant resources requiring special tools were tree grubs and wild honey or 'sugarbag'.

   • 2004, Vic Cherikoff, Dining Downunder: The Cook Book, page 157:

     Sugarbag is a widely used colloquial Aboriginal-English name for the honey from native bees.

   • 2005, Tony Roberts, Frontier Justice: A History of the Gulf Country to 1900:

     While gathering 'sugarbag', or native honey, a day or so later, the young teenagers again came very close to being shot: The troopers were dog tired. Rosie was up in the tree chopping out a sugarbag with a stone axe.

   • 2010 September 7, Diana Plater, “Battle for Noonkanbah paid off”, in The West Australian‎^[1]:

     They do still practise traditional hunting methods though - teaching the kids how to find sugarbag, how to fish and hunt for goannas and other animals.

Alternative forms

• sugar bag
• sugar-bag

Derived terms

• sugarbag bee (Tetragonula carbonaria)

Translations

bag for holding sugar

• Italian: bugno (it) m

(Australia) wild honey or honeycomb

Further reading

• Australian Aboriginal sweet foods on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “sugar bag, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.