walkabout
nounEtymology Deverbal from walk about, originally in Australian Pidgin English; the Australian aboriginal word wokabat is derived from this term.
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.
- Derived terms
- go walkabout, walkabout disease