macquarie

Surf’s up. Grab your board and catch the five o’clock wave, a fictitious wave that passes down the Murrumbidgee River in Wagga Wagga each day. The wave is supposedly created by the release of water from an upriver dam. The tale is told to unwary visitors. If you get your surfboard and hurry down to Wagga Beach … Read more

Ah, the smell of peak hour traffic, don’t you just love it? Well, no, but while you’re on the school run, you might find yourself surrounded by a fleet of Balmain bulldozers.  A Balmain bulldozer is a derogatory term for a city-only four-wheel drive. This is a vehicle owned by someone living in an urban area and … Read more

This week we have a piece of chargrilled Aussie slang we can’t wait to slather in sauce and sink our teeth into. That’s right, we’re taking a bite out of the famous democracy sausage. Though it’s not a Federal election year, we thought there was enough voting going on around our states and in a … Read more

Australia has some of Earth’s most unique fauna. We have animals like the platypus and echidna that can’t be found anywhere else in the world. And we love them. We’ve even put them on our money. But deep down we know that really they’re priceless, and what better to celebrate them then through internet memes?  … Read more

Yes, that’s right, as 2020 creeps towards 2021, we at Macquarie Dictionary HQ are gathering our committee of wordsmiths to decide on our Word of the Year (and what a year it has been!) Last year’s winner cancel culture, still has relevance in 2020 but has been somewhat overshadowed by events since it took out … Read more

This blog was inspired by the blue swimmer, which as well as being a kind of crab turns out to be a slang name for a ten-dollar note. You might have been tapping your card more than handling notes lately, so here is a reminder of what it’s like to handle cold hard cash. Australia’s … Read more

We’ve got a sugar rush of Aussie slang for you to chew on, so sit down and unwrap this week’s Word of the Week. A lolly is a sweet or piece of confectionery. Particular to Australia and New Zealand, lolly has been part of Aussie slang since the 1850s. A conversation lolly is a sugary lolly with a … Read more

There’s a fundamental rule in dictionary-writing that colloquialisms should be avoided in definitions. The idea is that the language should be neutral in register – not archaic, not so formal as to be stilted, and definitely not colloquial. Idioms should also be avoided – those phrases that carry a meaning which is more than the literal sum … Read more

You think that merino woollen jumper you’re wearing just came to you beautiful and soft. No! You are wearing that jumper thanks to the work of a ringer! A ringer is the fastest shearer in a shearing shed. Recorded since the 1870s, the word comes from an earlier, now obsolete, sense, where a ringer was any person or thing that … Read more

This week’s Word of the Week is a versatile piece of Aussie slang that often arrives in chunks. Chuck means, among other things, to vomit, as in he chucked up on my carpet! Lovely. Thankfully chuck also has some less gross meanings.  In Australia certain things are chucked rather than ‘done’ or ‘taken’. For instance, … Read more