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Glite Dictionary
bushranger

bushranger

3 9.9
A person in Australia who robs travelers and hides in the bush
  • noun
  • Archaic
: bandido del bush
  • a female bushranger

Examples

  • Bushranger is on the far side.

    50 to 1 (2014)

  • We cut Sunday school whenever possible, and the people we knew were rough: watermen, bushrangers, and city toughs.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • But at a young age, Edmund had taken such a liking to the stories of the renowned bushranger Ned Kelly that his friends had started calling him Ned.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • The notorious bushranger Ned Kelly became a symbol of rebellion in Australia.

  • In the 19th century, many bushrangers hid in the Australian bush to escape capture.

  • Travelers often feared encountering a bushranger during their journeys across the outback.

Surface Forms

bushranger singular
bushrangers plural

Morphology

bushranger = bush + ranger (semi-transparent) = bush + ranger

The components 'bush' and 'ranger' are clear, but the specialised historical Australian sense 'outlaw who robs and hides in the bush' is culture-specific and not fully predictable from the parts.

Etymology

The word bushranger comes from bush ('wild land') and ranger ('a person who moves around'), and it was used in Australia in the 1800s for people who lived in the bush and often robbed travelers. So a bushranger is an outlaw who hid in the wild and stole from travelers, which explains the modern meaning.