dilly bag

Alternative forms

• dillybag
• dilly-bag

Etymology

From Yagara dili (“coarse grass; small fibre bag or basket”).

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

dilly bag (plural dilly bags)

1. (Australia) A traditional Australian Aboriginal string bag, made from twisted bark fibres and used for gathering food.
   • 1885, Rosa Campbell Praed, Australian Life: Black and White, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0607211:

     I learned, too, at the camp to plait dilly-bags, to chop sugar-bags (otherwise hives of native bees) out of trees, to make drinking-vessels from gourds, and to play the jews′-harp.

   • 1987, Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, Vintage, published 1998, page 5:

     The man had a long forked beard and carried a spear or two, and a spear-thrower. The woman carried a dilly-bag and a baby at her breast.

2. (Australia, by extension) Any similar loose bag with a large strap, normally made of soft cloth.
   • 1968, Geoffrey Blainey, Across a Red World‎, page 132:

     The woman carried two small battered suitcases, fastened with rope, and a plastic dilly bag; the man carried only a scent of garlic.

   • 2008, Doug Wakeling, Curse the Bells‎, page 164:

     She handed him a slip of paper with the address of her uncle′s property in Penrith an outlying suburb of Sydney and he tucked it into his dilly bag to record in his diary for safekeeping.

3. Synonym of ditty bag