gibber

n. an aboriginal word for a stone.Used both of loose stones and of rocks. The G is hard.

1834. L. E. Threlkeld, `Australian Grammar,' p. x. [In a listof `barbarisms']:

«Gibber, a stone.»

[ Pace Mr. Threlkeld, the word is aboriginal, though notof the dialect of the Hunter District, of which he is speaking.]

1852. `Settlers and Convicts; or Recollections of Sixteen Years'Labour in the Australian Backwoods,' p. 159:

«Of a rainy night like this he did not object to stow himselfby the fireside of any house he might be near, or under the`gibbers' (overhanging rocks) of the river. . . .»

1890. A .J. Vogan, `Black Police,' p. 338:

«He struck right on top of them gibbers (stones).»

1894. Baldwin Spencer, in `The Argus,' Sept. 1, p. 4, col. 2:

«At first and for more than a hundred miles [from Oodnadattanorthwards], our track led across what is called the gibbercountry, where the plains are covered with a thin layer ofstones – – the gibbers – – of various sizes, derived from the breakingdown of a hard rock which forms the top of endless low,table-topped hills belonging to the desert sandstoneformation.»