Etymology Dictionary

ABORIGINES,  indigenous inhabitants.  (L.)   'Calling them aborigines and αὐτόχθονες;' Selden's notes to Drayton's Polyolbion, song 8.—Lat. aborigines, the ancestors of the Romans, the nations which, previous to historical record, drove out the Siculi (Lewis and Short).   Coined from Lat. ab origine, where origine is the abl. of Lat. origo; see Origin.   β. This phrase is usually interpreted as meaning 'from the beginning;' but Dr. Guest suggests that it means men without origin, 'those who could be traced to no distinct origin, obscure, indigenous, and what might now be called prehistoric races;' Origines Celticæ, i. 91.   Cf. Lat. ab-sonus, dissonant, &c.   But Virgil's use of ab origine, Æn. i. 372, 642, 753, x. 179, renders this suggestion very doubtful, and I think it should be decisively rejected.   Der. aborigin-al.