/ˌæbəˈrɪdʒɪniːz/
[noun] The original people who have lived in a place from the earliest known times, before other groups arrived. The word is often used to refer to the native peoples of Australia, but it can describe the first inhabitants of any land.
This word comes from a Latin phrase meaning 'from the very beginning' — the Romans used it to describe their own ancient ancestors, not distant peoples.
The word 'aborigines' is built from two Latin parts: the prefix 'ab', meaning 'from' or 'away from', and 'origine', the ablative form of 'origo', meaning 'origin', 'beginning', or 'source'. Put together, 'ab origine' literally means 'from the beginning' or 'from the origin'. The Romans used this phrase, and later the single word 'Aborigines', to refer to the earliest known inhabitants of Latium — the ancient region of Italy around Rome — who were considered to be there before recorded history began. Crucially, the Romans were speaking about their own ancestral past, not about foreign or exotic peoples.
The Latin root 'origo' itself comes from the verb 'oriri', meaning 'to rise' or 'to be born', which is also the source of English 'origin', 'original', and 'orient' — that last one connecting to the idea of the sun rising in the east. So embedded within 'aborigines' is a vivid image of people who rose up, or were born, at the very dawn of a place's history.
The word entered English in the 16th century, during the great age of European exploration, when writers needed vocabulary to describe the native peoples they were encountering around the world. English writers borrowed 'Aborigines' directly from Latin texts, initially applying it broadly to mean any group of people found to be the first occupants of a territory. Early English usage often capitalised the word and treated it as a grand, classical term — a way of framing indigenous peoples through a Roman lens, which itself reveals much about the colonial mindset of the era.
Over the following centuries, the word's application narrowed in popular usage. By the 18th and 19th centuries, as British colonisation of Australia intensified, 'Aborigines' became most strongly associated with the indigenous peoples of that continent — the many distinct nations and communities who had lived there for at least 65,000 years. This association became so powerful that today 'Aboriginal' and 'Aborigines', when capitalised, almost automatically refer to the First Nations peoples of Australia in everyday English, even though the word is technically applicable to any land's original inhabitants.
The singular form 'Aborigine' and the adjective 'Aboriginal' followed naturally from the plural Latin borrowing. In recent decades, there has been important discussion about respectful terminology. Many Aboriginal Australians prefer to be identified by their specific nation or language group — such as Wiradjuri or Arrernte — and some find the broad term 'Aborigine' reductive or colonial in feel. The preferred terms in formal and respectful Australian usage today are often 'Aboriginal people', 'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples', or simply 'First Nations peoples', reflecting a much richer understanding of the diversity and deep history of these communities.
What makes 'aborigines' particularly striking as a word is its quiet irony: it began as the Romans' proud, self-referential word for their own ancient forebears — a label of deep rootedness and belonging — and was later carried by European colonisers to label the very people whose lands they were taking away. A word that once meant 'us, the people who have always been here' became, in the hands of newcomers, a word for 'them, the people we found here'. Few words carry such a complicated journey from their origin to their most familiar modern use.