yabby

Definition

Any of various freshwater crayfish, typically of the genus Cherax, valued as food, especially Cherax destructor of southeastern Australia.

Etymology

Borrowed from Wemba-Wemba yabij.

Example Sentences

• "Having arrived at night I can speak with some authority on the desolate feeling the road produces: the white fire-scarred trunks, the unsettling vision of yabbies moving from one side of the road to the other."
• "Wiradjuri people in New South Wales also built large dams, and then carried fish and yabbies in coolamons over large distances to stock the new waterholes."
• "Callianassa australiensis is known in southern New South Wales as the "ghost-nipper" (Dakin, Bennett and Pope, 1952), and in northern New South Wales and Queensland as the "yabby" (a word of aboriginal origin also applied to freshwater crayfish)."

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