Dictionary

Dictionary Macquarie Dictionary data is available to licence for commercial and research projects. With more than 160,000 words and phrases, and more than 240,000 definitions, the Macquarie Dictionary database offers a comprehensive and authoritative record of Australian English.  Use cases for Macquarie Dictionary data include but are not limited to: Spell checking or proofreading software … Read more

Help

Searching: Select Dictionary or Thesaurus by clicking the appropriate button.Enter the word you are looking for in the box above.Click the ‘Go’ button or press the ‘Enter’ key. A screen will appear giving the complete entry for the top hit, along with the number of other hits and a link to a listing of all … Read more

Grammar Guide

Grammar guide abbreviations abbreviations 1. An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word which stands for the whole word. Av      Avenue A contraction is a special kind of abbreviation which starts and ends with the same letters as the full word. Ave      Avenue 2. punctuation of abbreviations Rules for punctuating abbreviations have varied over … Read more

Terms And Conditions

Terms and conditions Thank you for visiting our website. These Terms and Conditions (‘Terms’) apply to your use of this website and any and all other websites operated by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd (ACN 001 184 014) (‘Macmillan’) (including its divisions and related bodies and any subsidiary or entity or imprint controlling or controlled … Read more

mondegreen

a word or phrase which results from a mishearing or misinterpretation of the original words, especially in song lyrics, as Australians all eat ostriches from Australians all let us rejoice, the first line of the national anthem.

Word of the Year category insight | Environment

There are a 15 categories in the Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year competition (you can check the full list of words here). Each category consists of five words, with the winner of each category forming part of our shortlist and going in to the running for Word of the Year. In light of the pandemic, … Read more

The Macquarie Dictionary COVID Word of the Year shortlist

The Macquarie Dictionary COVID Word of the Year is rona. The word was chosen from a list of 20 COVID-related words. You can see the shortlist below.  Though there are 15 categories in this year’s Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year, we decided to create a special COVID category to isolate the huge number of … Read more

Data – singular or plural?

A recent poll in the UK found that 74% of respondents treat the word ‘data’ as a singular collective nouns, compared to 14% that treat it as plural. The results of this poll were published on Twitter and sparked some mild outrage about the degradation of the English language. The word data comes to us from classical … Read more

Foreign affairs: bruschetta, lingerie and other words from abroad

Did you know that forte, as in ‘His forte is portrait photography’, which we pronounce  ‘faw-tay in Australian English, is actually pronounced like ‘fort’ in French, with a silent ‘e’? Or that the sch in bruschetta is pronounced ‘sk’ rather than ‘sh’ in Italian, so  ‘broos’ketuh’ rather than ‘broo’shetuh’? Similarly, you might think that the … Read more