Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

blackbirding

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English

Syllables: black-bird-ing
IPA

24

Scrabble Score

12

Letters

3

Syllables

10

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

The practice of kidnapping Pacific Islanders, or kanakas, for sale as cheap labour.

Australian usage; New Zealand usage; British usage; Uncountable

verb

present participle and gerund of blackbird

Example Sentences

"Burns Philp was to incur public odium in the most notorious case in Queensland concerning blackbirding."
"Douglas Oliver, in Black Islanders, tells the story of a blackbirding party which, in 1871, captured a group of eighty-five unsuspecting Bougainvilleans who had taken their twenty-man canoes to the blackbirding ship out of curiosity or a desire to trade."
"Blackbirding was the euphemism given to the slave-trading that occurred in the Pacific from the mid-1800s through to the early-1900s. According to one study, blackbirding, [as] “the practice of luring Melanesians and Polynesians to toil for next to nothing was called”, involved upwards of 60,000 people between 1863 and 1904 (Horne, 2007, p. 2)."

Etymology

From blackbird + -ing, perhaps from the putative slang blackbird (“indigenous Pacific islander”).

Word Breakdown

Suffix: blackbird

Usage

Frequently Paired Words

blackbirder

Questions

What does blackbirding mean?: The practice of kidnapping Pacific Islanders, or kanakas, for sale as cheap labour.
Where does blackbirding come from?: From blackbird + -ing, perhaps from the putative slang blackbird (“indigenous Pacific islander”).

How to pronounce blackbirding

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