Brisbane

//ˈbɹɪzbən// name

name ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A large city, the capital city of Queensland, Australia.
  2. 2
    A local government area in Queensland, the largest by population in Australia; in full, the City of Brisbane.
  3. 3
    A river that flows through the city in Queensland; in full, the Brisbane River.
  4. 4
    A city in San Mateo County, California, United States.

Example

More examples

"Laurie's family lives in Brisbane."

Etymology

From Scottish Gaelic bris (“break, smash”) + Old English bān (“bone”), a nickname given to someone who was often involved in fights, resulting in the breaking of bones. The city and river in Australia are named after Sir Thomas Brisbane, 1773–1860; governor of New South Wales (which at the time included the area of modern Queensland) from 1821 to 1825.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.