English borrowed 'kangaroo' directly from Guugu Yimithirr 'gangurru' during Cook's 1770 expedition — one of the earliest and most famous instances of an Australian Aboriginal word entering the English language, and the subject of a persistent myth that was only put to rest by fieldwork two centuries later.
A large marsupial native to Australia, of the family Macropodidae, characterized by powerful hind legs, a long muscular tail, and a pouch in which females carry their young.
From Guugu Yimithirr 'gangurru,' the name used by the Aboriginal people of the Endeavour River region of northeastern Queensland for a specific species of grey kangaroo. The word was recorded by members of Captain James Cook's first Pacific voyage in 1770, when the Endeavour was beached for repairs near present-day Cooktown. The popular myth that the word means
The 'kangaroo court' expression — meaning an improper, hasty trial — has nothing to do with Australia; it likely originated in American frontier slang of the 1840s, comparing the leaping progress of such proceedings to a kangaroo's bounds.