1892. J. Fraser, `Aborigines of New South Wales,' p. 70:
"The `come-back' variety (of boomerang) is not a fighting weapon. A dialect name for it is bargan, which word may be explained in our language to mean `bent like a sickle or crescent moon.'"
<hw>Barking Owl</hw>, <i>n</i>. a bird not identified, and not in Gould (who accompanied Leichhardt).
1847. L. Leichhardt, `Overland Expedition, p. 47:
"The glucking-bird and the barking-owl were heard throughout the moonlight night."
<hw>Barrack</hw>, <i>v</i>. to jeer at opponents, to interrupt noisily, to make a disturbance; with the preposition "for," to support as a partisan, generally with clamour. An Australian football term dating from about 1880. The verb has been ruled unparliamentary by the Speaker in the Victorian Legislative Assembly. It is, however, in very common colloquial use. It is from the aboriginal word <i>borak</i> (q.v.), and the sense of jeering is earlier than that of supporting, but jeering at one side is akin to cheering for the other. Another suggested derivation is from the Irish pronunciation of "Bark," as (according to the usually accepted view) "Larrikin" from "larking." But the former explanation is the more probable. There is no connection with soldiers' "barracks;" nor is it likely that there is any, as has been ingeniously suggested, with the French word <i>baragouin</i>, gibberish.
1890. `Melbourne Punch,' Aug. 14, p. 106, col. 3:
"To use a football phrase, they all to a man `barrack' for the
British Lion."
1893. `The Age,' June 17, p. 15, col. 4:
"[The boy] goes much to football matches, where he barracks, and in a general way makes himself intolerable."