English

Noun

boong ‎(plural boongs)

1. (Australia, slang, dated) A native of New Guinea.
   • 1943, Australian Army, Timor Souvenir, in Khaki and Green: With the Australian Army at Home and Overseas, page 119,

     A couple of boongs came down and carried me up to the hut where our R.A.P. corporal was.

   • 1998, August Ibrum K. Kituai, My Gun, My Brother: The World of the Papua New Guinea Colonial Police, 1920-1960, page 282,

     During the War the soldiers generally referred to Papua New Guineans as “Boongs,” a name also given to black Americans. It is not a nice word, but is fair to say that the Aussies held the boongs in quite some affection during the War.

   • 2000, Prue Torney-Parlicki, Somewhere in Asia: War, Journalism and Australia's Neighbours 1941-75, page 48,

     [Department of Information cameraman Damien] Parer's views on mateship encompassed both the Papuans and the soldiers: at one point he wrote ‘“no boongs, no battle”, implying that natives and diggers were equal partners in their fight against the Japanese.’⁷¹

2. (Australia, slang, very pejorative, ethnic slur) An Australian aboriginal.
   • 1988, Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, page 92,

     I heard Bruce tell one of the drinkers he'd bought a place in Queensland where you could ‘still call a Boong a Boong’.

   • 2010, Peter Temple, The Broken Shore, page 82,

     ‘ […] I quit the feds because I didn't want to be a showpiece boong cop.’

   • 2011, Linda Lee Rathbun, Tjuringa, unnumbered page,

     “Yeah,” he said, “them boongs are a useless lot. The sooner they all die off, the better.”

     “And why is that?” Bill asked.

     “The Abos are nothing but a pack of boozers. All they wanna' do is get pissed.” The man glared at his beer. “Useless, they are.”

Synonyms

• (Asian or dark-skinned person): Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel
• (aboriginal): abo, Jacky

See also

• List of ethnic slurs#B on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

1. ↑ 1959, Xavier Herbert, Seven Emus, 2003, page 5 — The term boong is originally Malayan, meaning “brother”, but it doesn't mean anything like that in Australian usage.
2. ↑ 1988, The Bulletin, Issues 5617-5625, page 121 — They would doubtless have been amused to learn that in New Guinea, where the term "boong" originated, it means "brother" and has a kinship with the Indonesian "bung" and Thursday Island's "binghi".

Anagrams

• bogon, bongo