Temora, New South Wales

Temora (/təˈmɔːrə/) is a town in the north-east of the Riverina area of New South Wales, 418 kilometres (260 mi) south-west of the state capital, Sydney. At the 2021 census the population of Temora was 4,016.

Temora was named by John Donald McCansh. In September 1880 he told the Warwick Argus:

I took up the country for a sheep run in 1847, my sole companion being Valentine Lawler, who was then lessee of a station ('Nimbi') on Cunningham Creek. We could not ascertain the native name of the place as there were no blacks about, and rather than give it an English name, I called it 'Temora', the native name of a property near which I lived some years previously in another part of the Colony. I gave the station the name specially because it was aboriginal and I liked it. I did not know at that time, nor for years afterwards, that Temora was a name in Ossian's poems.

Neither the Wiradjuri Dictionary (2010) nor the Macquarie Dictionary of Aboriginal Words (2006) lists "temora" or any words similar to it, but the Dharug language dictionary online defines "temora" as "a tree standing alone". Alternatively, in the Celtic language it is derived from a term which means "an eminence commanding a wide view.