mickery
An Australian outback term for a small excavation or hollow dug into dry ground to reach subsurface moisture—essentially a shallow hand-dug well used by Indigenous Australians and later by stockmen and explorers to find water in arid conditions.
Definitions
An Australian outback term for a small excavation or hollow dug into dry ground to reach subsurface moisture—essentially a shallow hand-dug well used by Indigenous Australians and later by stockmen and explorers to find water in arid conditions. The technique was crucial for survival in waterless country and was one of many desert survival methods adopted by European settlers from Aboriginal Australians.
When the waterhole dried up, the stockmen dug a mickery in the sandy creek bed and struck damp sand two feet down.
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(Australia) A soak dug into the ground.
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Semantically related
- mirrnyong59%
(Australia, archaeology) A mound of cooking debris accumulated by Aborigines; a kitchen midden.
- soakage59%
A source of water in Australian deserts, where water has seeped into the sand.
- mickey59%
(Australia, Ireland, NZ, slang, rare) The vulva.
- shicer57%
(Australia, slang) An unproductive claim or mine; a duffer.