shiralee

Etymology

First attested in print 1892. Later popularised through its use in the title of D'Arcy Niland′s 1955 novel The Shiralee (and two film adaptations, in 1957 and 1987)). Its meaning is no longer well known. Sometimes claimed to be from an (unidentified) Australian Aboriginal language. Alternatively, an anglicisation of Irish tiarálaí (“itinerant roustabout”) which came to be applied to his swag or matilda, and later (inspired by Niland's novel) to mean not only a physical burden but also a psychological one.

shiralee means burden; load. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.

Why this word is great

SHIRALEE — [Noun] An Australian term for a swagman’s bundle, extending to any burdensome load, physical or psychological. Of unknown origin; first attested in 1892, it is sometimes speculatively linked to an unidentified Australian Aboriginal language or to an anglicisation of the Irish tiarálaí (“itinerant roustabout”), but no definitive etymology is established. Unlike “swag” (which neutrally denotes a traveler’s roll) or “burden” (a universal abstraction), a shiralee is a weight made intimate by long acquaintance. It is the damp canvas roll biting into a sunburnt shoulder on a trackless plain, the silent child asleep on your hip as you trudge towards a town that may not be there, and the private history of regret that bends the spine—the inescapable companion that defines the journey by the sheer fact of its being carried.

noun

Burden; load.
Burden; load.; A type of swag that when rolled up resembles a leg of mutton, carried over the shoulder, usually with another load on the chest to balance it.“The bag of food like a shiralee across his shoulders, the water container stuffed into the looseness of his shirt, the compass, not required for awhile^([sic]) yet, in his side pocket, and the rifle balanced in his hand.”