Botany Bay
Preserved but no longer current.
An extensive inlet in New South Wales, discovered by Captain Cook in 1770. It was the first place of his landing upon Australian soil, and Cook himself thus named it on account of the great variety of new plants found there. Botany Bay was wrongly applied as a name of the convict settle- ment established in 1788 at Sydney Cove. In contemporary parlance the name was applied not only to New South Wales but even to the whole of Australia.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “Botany Bay” mean?
An extensive inlet in New South Wales, discovered by Captain Cook in 1770. It was the first place of his landing upon Australian soil, and Cook himself thus named it on account of the great variety of new plants found there. Botany Bay was wrongly applied as a name of the convict settle- ment established in 1788 at Sydney Cove. In contemporary parlance the name was applied not only to New South Wales but even to the whole of Australia.
Is “Botany Bay” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.