walkabout

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A period, often extended, during which an Aboriginal person left a station or settlement to travel on country, typically seasonally or for traditional cultural reasons; a journey by foot taken by an Aboriginal as a temporary withdrawal from white society.

   The police picked him up, reared him, and he had been a tracker ever since, except for periodical walk-abouts.

2. 2
   noun

   A public stroll by some celebrity to meet a group of people informally.

   While the world altered dramatically during the course of her reign, the monarchy did too, though rather more imperceptibly: the walkabouts that increasingly characterised royal appearances, the pop concerts at Buckingham Palace, the throwing open of the royal palaces to visitors – even the paying of income tax, and royal podcasts – would have been inconceivable as innovations at the time Elizabeth came to the throne.

3. 3
   noun

   nomadic excursions into the bush made by an Aborigine

4. 4
   noun

   a public stroll by a celebrity to meet people informally

5. 5
   noun

   a walking trip or tour

6. 6
   noun

   A walking trip.

7. 7
   noun

   An absence, usually from a regular place with a possibility of a return.

Etymology

Deverbal from walk about, originally in Australian Pidgin English; the Australian aboriginal word wokabat is derived from this term.