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'Billabong' is an Australian English word used to refer to an oxbow lake, a stagnant pool of water attached to a waterway. Billabongs are usually formed when the path of a creek or river changes, leaving the former branch with a dead end. The word is derived from two Indigenous Australian words: "billa" meaning "creek" and "bong" meaning "dead".
Billabongs appear relatively often in Australian literature. One of the most well-known references is in the opening line of Banjo Paterson's famous poem "Waltzing Matilda".