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National Kangaroo Day

Red Kangaroos have a national day, on April 20th it is National Kangaroo Day.

kan·ga·roo
(kăng′gə-ro͞o′)

n. pl. kangaroo or kan·ga·roos

Any of  various  large  herbivorous  marsupials  of  the  family  Macropodidae  of  Australia  and  adjacent  islands,  having  short  forelimbs,  large  hind  limbs  used  for  leaping,  and  a  long  tapered  tail.

Word History: A  widely  held  belief  has  it  that  the  word kangaroo comes  from  an  Australian  Aboriginal  word  meaning  "I  don't  know." This is  in  fact  untrue. The word  was  first  recorded  in  1770  by  Captain  James  Cook,  when  he  landed  to  make  repairs  along  the  northeast  coast  of  Australia. In 1820,  one  Captain  Phillip  K.  King  recorded  a  different  word  for  the  animal,  written  "mee-nuah." As a  result,  it  was  assumed  that  Captain  Cook  had  been  mistaken,  and  the  myth  grew  up  that  what  he  had  heard  was  a  word  meaning  "I  don't  know"  (presumably  as  the  answer  to  a  question  in  English  that  had  not  been  understood). Recent linguistic  fieldwork,  however,  has  confirmed  the  existence  of  a  word gangurru in  the  northeast  Aboriginal  language  of  Guugu  Yimidhirr,  referring  to  a  species  of  kangaroo. What Captain  King  heard  may  have  been  their  word minha, meaning  "edible  animal."

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

kangaroo
(ˌkæŋɡəˈruː)

n, pl -roos

1. (Animals)  any  large  herbivorous  marsupial  of  the  genus Macropus and  related  genera,  of  Australia  and  New  Guinea,  having  large  powerful  hind  legs,  used  for  leaping,  and  a  long  thick  tail:  family Macropodidae. See also rat kangaroo, tree kangaroo.