Meaning & use
kangaroo
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A large Australian marsupial that hops on strong back legs and carries its young in a pouch.
Grammar: Countable; the plural is 'kangaroos'.
Patterns
- a kangaroo
- kangaroos in the wild
We saw a kangaroo and her joey on the roadside.
Kangaroos are native to Australia and nearby islands.
The zoo has a new baby kangaroo that visitors can watch.
nouncountableinformal
Used in the phrase 'kangaroo court', an unofficial or unfair court that ignores proper legal procedures.
Grammar: Always used in the fixed phrase 'kangaroo court'.
Patterns
- kangaroo court
The prisoners were tried by a kangaroo court and given no chance to defend themselves.
Critics called the hearing a kangaroo court because the judge was clearly biased.
Word forms
| plural | kangaroos |
|---|
Common combinations
- kangaroo court
- The trial was condemned as a kangaroo court.
- kangaroo pouch
- The baby kangaroo stays in its mother's pouch for months.
- kangaroo hop
- The kangaroo hop is a distinctive way of moving.
- red kangaroo
- The red kangaroo is the largest marsupial in the world.
Word family
- kangaroo verb
- Rare: to move by jumping like a kangaroo; also informal for a car that jumps forward.
Commonly confused: kangaroo or wallaby?
kangaroo vs wallaby
A wallaby is a smaller relative of the kangaroo; the names are not interchangeable.
Practice
The animal that carries its young in a pouch and hops on its hind legs is a ___.
Choose one answer.
A kangaroo is a hopping marsupial with a pouch. A koala is a tree-dwelling marsupial, a wombat burrows, and a platypus is an egg-laying mammal.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “kangaroo”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.