We have all had a parent refer to a doodad, thingummyjig, do-hickey or dooverlackie. But the most common replacement word for thing in the Australian

The word eggcorn was coined in 2003 by British-American linguist, Geoffrey Pullum, born 1945, from such a substitution of eggcorn for acorn, taken as a type. 

Dinkum appears earliest in the phrase fair dinkum (1890 in Australia, but 1881 in Britain), and not as a separate word until 1905. It originates in the British

There are a lot of different meanings for the word go. At the moment of writing, there are 127 in the Macquarie Dictionary Online alone!

Here in Australia (and in most of the English-speaking world), there are two separate meanings for narc and nark. The former is an abbreviation of

To pike is a colloquialism unique to Australia, meaning to ‘go quickly’. And a piker is the type of person who would opt out of an

Some of the biggest debates in our fair nation revolve around different ways we refer to classic foods. Take, for example, the humble sausage sandwich, or sausage

In Newtown, Sydney, there is a sign near the train station that reads ‘the land of the Cadigal people of the Eora nation’. In Stanmore,

Here in Australia, we have always taken up words and expressions from other English-speaking parts of the world.

Beautiful words are in the eye of the beholder. We’ve taken some suggestions and put together a few more words that we think evoke a

Each week, we have a look at a slang word from Australian English. You can see other Aussie Word of the Week posts from the Macquarie Dictionary here. This week we look at knock ’em down rains.

You’d be forgiven for mishearing this and thinking the conversation was going to be about another Aussie classic, the yabby, but however similar this word

Hooroo as a farewell has been in use in Australia since at least 1916. It comes from the term hooray which was recorded in the Bulletin way

Things have been crook in Tallarook since at least the 1960s in Australia. It comes from Tallarook, a town in central northern Victoria; one of a number

The Sydney Language is the name given to the Australian Aboriginal language that was spoken in the greater Sydney area, comprising Dharug and Eora. The names Dharug and Eora were given by linguists to refer to the inland and coastal dialects of the language. Read more…

Read more about what our Committee thought of this word and view the whole the shortlist.