Dictionary

walkabout en · NOUN

Etymology

Deverbal from walk about, originally in Australian Pidgin English.

Meanings

1. (Australia) A period, often extended, during which an Aboriginal person left a station or settlement to travel on country, typically seasonally or for traditional cultural reasons; a journey by foot taken by an Aboriginal as a temporary withdrawal from white society.
   • The police picked him up, reared him, and he had been a tracker ever since, except for periodical walk-abouts. 1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 6:
2. A walking trip.
3. (UK) A public stroll by some celebrity to meet a group of people informally.
   • While the world altered dramatically during the course of her reign, the monarchy did too, though rather more imperceptibly: the walkabouts that increasingly characterised royal appearances, the pop concerts at Buckingham Palace, the throwing open of the royal palaces to visitors – even the paying of income tax, and royal podcasts – would have been inconceivable as innovations at the time Elizabeth came to the throne. September 8 2022, Stephen Bates, “Queen Elizabeth II obituary”, in The Guardian:
4. An absence, usually from a regular place with a possibility of a return.

Forms

Deriveds

walkabout disease · go walkabout

Descendants

wokabaut · wokbaot · wokebaut · gokabaut · wagbaut · wokabaot · wokabat

Translations (13)

es baño de masas (public stroll) · bg странстване (public stroll) · fi kierros kansan parissa (public stroll) · it bagno di folla (public stroll) · pl spacer (public stroll) · ms tinjauan mesra (public stroll) · de Bad in der Menge (public stroll) · de Rundgang (public stroll) · nl rondgang (public stroll) · fr périple (walking trip) · bg обиколка (public stroll) · pl wyjście (public stroll) · fr bain de foule (public stroll)