macquarie

This week at the Macquarie Dictionary, we are playing by Rafferty’s rules…

The term Brisvegas, a portmanteau of Brisbane and Vegas, originated in Queensland in part with ironic reference to the river city’s lack of showy opulence…

Stunned mullet is a classic piece of Aussie slang from the 1950s that refers to a person who is completely and utterly stunned, amazed, dazed or otherwise stonkered…

The football season may be over but we thought there was still time for some state versus state rivalry. This week’s Aussie Word of the Week is Cabbage Garden…

I was asked by a colleague the other day about the phrase on accident – as in to have done something on accident – and where this has come from. He had heard someone say that something was done on accident, but he was adamant that the ‘correct’ phrase is by accident. Traditionally speaking, the phrase is by accident. The variant on accident is … Read more

It’s a dog-heavy list, but we know a lot of people like it that way. When we look through our words to watch, often submitted by you for consideration in the Macquarie Dictionary, we enjoy hearing new coinages as well as words that may have been around for a while but are getting more and more popular. … Read more

Put on your daggiest duds because we are exploring all things daggy in this week’s Aussie Word of the Week…

Cooee, the sound of the great Australian contact call was adopted by the first European colonists from the Dharug language and people of the Sydney area…

Usually associated with New Zealand’s North Island, in Australian Slang, the ‘North Island‘ is used by Tasmanians as an ironic nickname for that big chunk of land that sits across the Bass Strait…