We all know that babies learn language from their parents. Indeed if they are deprived of this language learning – as happened with children who were lost and lived in the wild – then they find it very difficult to learn language when they are much older and rediscovered. Read more…
This Halloween, we’re thinking about one of our favourite suffixes, -mancy. Meaning ‘divination’, there are many fascinating words depicting the craft of what is in some cases very specific forms of fortune telling. These are largely older words, but we’ve picked a few of the best. Let us know of any new words (we’ve got our eye on technomancy and lexicomancy is starting to look pretty good too) that relate to divination. Read more…
We are always on the lookout for new, emerging and interesting words to add to the Macquarie Dictionary. In a time of global instant communication, these words are popping up faster and in vaster quantities than ever before. Read more words from October 2017 here…
The early European settlers had much to find words for in the Australian landscape and their choice was either to borrow from Aboriginal languages (kangaroo, dingo, budgerigar, coolibah) or take a word from British English, often British dialect, and stretch the original meaning to the new shape (wattle, creek, magpie, paddock). Read more…
It’s been a while since a politician has resorted to branding their opponents as un-Australian but we had an instance of it recently with Immigration Minister Peter Dutton applying it to pro-bono lawyers defending refugees. It has to be said that he was prompted to do it by radio broadcaster Alan Jones but he took it up willingly enough. Read more…
English borrows from many languages, but it has more trouble digesting some borrowed words than others. Of late we seem to have taken on board many more words from Japanese, mostly to do with food and drink. Read more…
We are always on the lookout for new, emerging and interesting words to add to the Macquarie Dictionary. In a time of global instant communication, these words are popping up faster and in vaster quantities than ever before. Read more…
You would think that the answer to this would be ‘after a suitable period of time’. For example, table comes from tabula, borrowed into Old English from Classical Latin. Read more…
Darryn King dropped by the office to have a chat with our editorial team about what goes on behind the scenes.
Read the full article | The Monthly, July 2017
Note: This article is behind The Monthly’s paywall.
We are always on the lookout for new, emerging and interesting words to add to the Macquarie Dictionary. In a time of global instant communication, these words are popping up faster and in vaster quantities than ever before. Read more…
A dictionary reader asked about the distinction between persons and people, both indicating plurality but having different connotations.
If we start with the etymologies of the two words we can see that they are coming from different directions… Read more…
Tweet us, comment and tag us in your most imaginative, outlandish and of course, fitting new terms. We’ve got a list of animals below, but don’t stop there, we want your most obscure, clever, interesting and fun takes on what makes an Aussie collective noun.
We’ll give our favourite entries prizes from the new Seventh Edition Macquarie Dictionary range. Read more…
This NAIDOC Week, we’re celebrating by sharing some fun facts around the many different Aboriginal languages and cultures in Australia. Read more…
We are always on the lookout for new, emerging and interesting words to add to the Macquarie Dictionary. In a time of global instant communication, these words are popping up faster and in vaster quantities than ever before. Read more…
The different meanings of colour words normally flow from their basic sense and are self-evident.
Blue for the old-fashioned washing powder came about because it turned blue in water. A blue for a sporting award came about because the ribbon with which the person or animal was draped was blue. Read more…
Fitspo, bromance. The world is full of made up words but this is a new one – Covfefe. Last night US President, Donald Trump, tweeted “Despite the constant negative press covfefe”. So what does it mean?
Victoria Morgan, editor of the Macquarie Dictionary, speaks to Raf Epstein.
We are always on the lookout for new, emerging and interesting words to add to the Macquarie Dictionary. In a time of global instant communication, these words are popping up faster and in vaster quantities than ever before. Read more…
One of the ways in which English expands the lexicon is by using what are called ‘productive’ prefixes or suffixes. These are little working units with an element of meaning which can be attached to the beginning or the end of another word to create a new word. Some of these are very durable while others are fashionable for a moment so that they generate a cluster of new words and then fade away. Read more…
