Billabong is a pool or small lake in Australia. People also use the term to describe an incomplete stream that flows out from another stream, but does not return to it. Billabongs occur mainly in areas where a hot, dry season follows recurring floods. The overflow of the flood may escape into a billabong, where it eventually dries up. Or the river, at full flood, may flow straight across a neck of land formed by a curve in the river, leaving a curved billabong. The word billabong is an Australian Aboriginal word meaning dead river.
