A boomerang is a curved throwing stick that, when thrown correctly, flies through the air in a spinning arc and returns to the thrower. Traditional boomerangs were invented by Indigenous Australians thousands of years ago and are shaped like a bent letter L or V. The special curved design and the way you throw it create forces that make it circle back, almost like it's defying logic.

Not all boomerangs return, though. Indigenous Australians also crafted heavier, straighter boomerangs for hunting that would fly far and straight to bring down prey, never circling back. The returning boomerang was used more for sport, practice, and recreation.

Today, people use boomerang as a verb to describe anything that comes back to affect the person who started it. If you spread a rumor about someone and it eventually gets back to you, causing you trouble, that rumor boomeranged on you. If a country imposes trade restrictions on another country, and those restrictions end up hurting its own economy, the policy boomeranged. The word captures that sense of something returning, often unexpectedly, to its source.