macquarie

This week’s Aussie Word of the Week is jumbuck. A jumbuck is a name for a sheep. Formerly quite common, now virtually obsolete except for its prominent placement in the national song Waltzing Matilda, jumbuck originated from Aboriginal Pidgin English, where it seems as though it might have related to the phrase jump up. One theory has jumbuck as an Aboriginal … Read more

It’s October and that means that footballs of various codes are being kicked into touch as sports enthusiasts across the country fetch their cricket bats from the shed. Before you exchange the Steeden for the Kookaburra, we thought we would celebrate the season that was with a look at footy inspired slang. In Australia, the … Read more

The origin of the word Easter is quite straightforward: Middle English ester, Old English ēastre, originally, name of goddess associated with the vernal equinox; distantly related to Latin aurōra dawn, Greek eōs; related to east But, for most of us, how the date of Easter is calculated each year is a mystery. Historically, because of … Read more

The calendar used around the world these days, for most purposes, is the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. It ironed out a few little problems in its predecessor, the Julian calendar (established by Julius Caesar in 46 BC), which had in turn been based on the Roman calendar. The early Roman … Read more

What could be more fun than combining two words to create a brand new word? Almost nothing. That’s why the Macquarie Dictionary employs a dedicated team of word chefs who spend all day cooking up new portmanteaus. Well, not quite but we do like to write about them.  A portmanteau word is made by blending … Read more

This week’s blog features a quintessential piece of Aussie slang. Mate is renowned the world over for its place in the Aussie lexicon, so much so that it is used by Prime Ministers and Presidents to refer the relationship between Australia and the United States. Mate is an expression of true and undying friendship. Equivalent to the British chum and … Read more

As the weather heats up and spring storms leave our balconies flooded, you might hear the buzz of the notorious Hexham grey, a large and voracious species of mosquito found in the locality of Hexham, NSW. Sorry, Hexham.  There are few things more unsettling than lying down to sleep at the end of a long day … Read more

Every now and then we jump in our time machine and kidnap a famous (or infamous) figure from Australian history so we can trot them out for your linguistic pleasure. This week we captured bushranger Ned Kelly. The bushranger provided Aussie English with plenty of interesting and unusual phrases that remain in the lexicon to this … Read more

This week we’re talking about the tin lid, that’s rhyming slang for kid. Join us as we regale you with other kid related slang.  You may know that a nipper is a child, as well the name for a junior lifesaver, but did you know that a nipper was also a young lad on a construction site or in a mine … Read more