Etymology
The origin of the name Kingaroy is conjectural. It is usually claimed to be derived from the Wakka Wakka Aboriginal word for 'Red Ant'. The local Kingaroy Rugby League football team is known as "the Red Ants" and a Red Ant features on the old Kingaroy Shire coat of arms. However a Wakka Wakka Word List provides the following explanation: "Derived from 'king', a small black ant, and 'dhu'roi', meaning hungry. The name was suggested by a local Aboriginal helper of the surveyor Mr Hector Munro who surveyed the original grazing holding of this name on account of these ants being a pest at the survey camp". A more probable origin is that the name Kingaroy is connected with the name of the nearby Mount Kiangarow, the highest peak of the Bunya Mountains, and is simply a gentrification of the word kangaroo.
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Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
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