macquarie

How do you peruse this blog? Do you read over it carefully and with great focus? Or do you skim it leisurely? Meaning is a tricky and changeable thing, and this is nowhere more obvious than with contronyms: words that have a pair of opposing meanings. Peruse is one of these words, as are sanction … Read more

Spring is here! Fold up those Merino jumpers and put away your heaters because we have six new words to help you thaw after a long winter.  A new season means new fashion trends. Are you up to date with the latest fit? That’s an outfit. Can you see yourself clad in warcore? Though it might sound like … Read more

Our stomachs are rumbling. Care to share some slang words with us over brekkie? Or perhaps you spell it breaky or even breakie? Whichever way, that’s breakfast. The most important meal of the day. Naturally, after breaking our fast we looked through our database in search of other breakfast related words. Have you ever eaten … Read more

Eat a spoonful of cement and harden up because brickie is our word of the week. A brickie is a bricklayer. This piece of Aussie slang has been around for yonks and was recorded as early as 1900. You might say that brickie has cemented its place in the Aussie lexicon. You could even consider it a … Read more

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a footballer getting whacked on the head. Falcon originally meant being hit in the face with the ball but is now used to describe any accidental headbutt. The falcon originated from rugby league and is so called in honour of a famous incident involving the face … Read more

Anyone conscious of their receding hairline might want to snap on a cap because this week’s word of the week is as bald as a bandicoot. To be bald as a bandicoot means to be totally bald. This is a bit of a weird phrase given that bandicoots, small marsupials, are manifestly furry, not bald.  Bandicoots are … Read more

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Another word of the week, that’s who. Knocker is this week’s featured word. A knocker is a person who’s always putting others down; one who doesn’t have anything good to say about anything. The kind of ratbag that Aussies have been hating under this title since at least the 1920s.  To … Read more

Welcome to another edition of our monthly new words blog where we introduce some of the trendy new words our editorial team are tracking.  With several major cities around the country reliving lockdown in recent weeks, the Aussie public have again used their time at home to invent new pandemic-related slang. Do you have dick-nose? It … Read more

Australians have been diligent in coining ironic phrases to denote the completely useless, and a warning, some of these phrases get quite colourful! Firstly, there are those with a rural flavour. Such as useful as a bucket under a bull, a dead dingo’s donger, a dry thunderstorm, a sore arse to a boundary rider, a wether … Read more

Welcome to our new words for July blog. We’ve got some treats for you this month, including cute animals and the latest Gen Z slang, but our first new word has more serious undertones.  A drought baby is a child born in a period of drought, especially one having never seen rain. The word speaks … Read more