It's been a tough couple of years for high school graduates across Australia. Learning from home, cancelled school formals and exams with the added stress of the Covid-19 pandemic have made their last year of school a challenge. That's why schoolies is this week's Word of the Week.  Schoolies is a week or so of holiday taken by Year 12 students after their final exams. Surfers Paradise on Queensland's Gold Coast is the most popular destination but during schoolies week you're likely to see recently graduated high school students taking over many popular beachside towns. Around Perth, schoolies is known as leavers week.  Being such a raucous week, schoolies has given rise to other slang words. A frogger is a volunteer representative of Red Frogs Australia, an organisation established to provide protection and guidance to young people gathered together in social situations in which they may be at risk, in particular from alcohol and drug use. You're likely to see plenty of froggers around Surfers Paradise.  A toolie is a young male who is older than the school leavers who gather for schoolies week, but who joins them in pursuit of sex. Have fun school leavers and stay safe! 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 shine a spotlight on a quintessential piece of Aussie slang, a word famous the world over: sheila. A sheila is a woman. In use since the 1830s, sheila has its origin in a generic use of the common Irish girl's name. As pointed out by former Macquarie Chief Editor Sue Butler, sheila has many meanings that range from neutral to viewing woman as sexual objects or even prostitutes. Sheila is basically a bloke's word – women on the whole do not use it. Some men seem to think it is a neutral word, rather than a derogatory one, despite the fact it is often spoken in the same breath as a host of sexually charged slang words such as poke and root. In general women don't like being called sheilas. There is even a movement to reclaim the word for the girls: check out Sheilas, the badass women of Australian history.  Sheila has two rhyming slang variations: Charlie, which comes from Charlie Wheeler (an artist who painted nudes) and potato, from potato peeler.  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.  

When's the last time you made a barry, that is, a blunder or terrible mistake? The shortened form of Barry Crocker, barry is rhyming slang for shocker, which is commonly used in sport to mean a bad game. Barry Crocker was the Australian popular entertainer who took the title role in the Barry McKenzie films of the 1970s. We searched our database for other ways of saying something is bad or that you made a mistake. In a classic case of Aussie understatement, to say you feel average actually means you feel pretty bad. The same goes for ordinary. Much like shocker, ordinary is frequently heard in sports broadcasts: that pass was ordinary. In other words, it was no good or nothing special.  Dog's breakfast is a wonderfully evocative phrase that refers to a mess or a confused state of affairs, also known as a dog's dinner. A double whammy is when two bad things happen at once or one right after the other. The mathematical formula for a double whammy is a barry + a dog's breakfast = a double whammy.  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's Aussie Word of the Week floated up the Bass Strait into Sydney Harbour where we scooped it up. A sort of reverse Sydney to Hobart if you will. The word is rum'un, a Tasmanian way to refer to an odd or eccentric person. An apt description for most of the Macquarie Dictionary crew.  Inspired by rum'un, we circumnavigated the Australian Word Map to find other Tasmanian slang words. Denizens of the Apple Isle have contributed some of the most incredible slang to the Word Map. Look no further than the attack of the flying axe handles as an example. This colourful, slghtly terrifying phrase is apparently a way to reveal you suffered a severe and sudden case of diarrhoea. The flannel curtain is a name for the division between Hobart and Glenorchy. Reminiscent of Sydney's latte line, the flannel curtain comes from the observed penchant of Northern Tasmanians for flannel shirts. Frosty chop is a name for a beer while a rum do is the name for a lively party where you're likely to drink that beer.  For more slang from Tassie and across Australia, be sure to check out the Australian Word Map. 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.

Australia is a nation of gardeners. One of our favourite gardening pastimes is cutting down tall poppies.  A tall poppy is a person who is pre-eminent in a particular field or a person with great status. Australians in general have a bit of a negative view of tall poppies, especially if they seem to get above themselves. When this happens, they need to be cut down to size. Tall poppy comes from the notion of the poppy flower rising above the corn, which in Australian English expanded to tall poppy. Hence tall poppy syndrome: a desire to diminish in stature those people who have attained excellence. Once thought uniquely Australian, the tall poppy has been amplified through the internet and become universalised in the form of the now infamous milkshake duck, a person who is initially viewed positively by the media but is then discovered to have something questionable about them which causes a sharp decline in their popularity. Crowned the Committee's Word of the Year in 2017, milkshake duck, has not have survived the test of time, much to the Committee's chagrin, though the phenomenon of cutting down those we perceive as getting too big for their boots certainty hasn't gone away.  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.  

We love a good swim, or flail, in the life-affirming waters that wash upon our fine Australian beaches. There are so many beaches to visist and so many costumes to choose from. The Macquarie Dictionary can help you with the latter because this week's Word of the Week is budgie smugglers.  Budgie smugglers is the pre-eminent name for speedos, a close-fitting, nylon, legless swimming costume designed for men. Donning budgie smugglers brings the risk of derision, as former Prime Minister Tony Abbott found it when he inspired Facebook groups demanding he ditch the speedos and cover up.  The list of slang names for speedos is long and often crude. Some of the best alternatives to budgie smugglers common in New South Wales include ball huggers, boasters, budgie huggers and cluster busters. In Queensland, they go by ingenious names such as lolly bags and meat hangers.  An old-fashioned term, little heard nowadays, was nylon disgusters. Surfies, who wear boardies, call them clubbies, referring to the preferences of surf lifesavers. And they also get called racers, as they are used for competitive swimming. 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'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 word for 'a white mist preceding a shower', to which sheep supposedly bore a resemblance. Whichever origin story is correct, jumbuck isn't the first word borrowed from an Indigenous language. For more information, read our blog on loan words from Australian languages.  At Macquarie, we can't get enough of sheep, apparently. If you're also going a bit baa baa, why not check out our blog on the sheepish origins of dags as well as our blog on sheep shearing slang. 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.

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 meaning of footy depends on which state you live in. In New South Wales and Queensland, footy generally means rugby league. In Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, it means Aussie Rules. For British backpackers, it means soccer.  Do you pray to the footy gods? These deities are the notional gods who are thought to intervene to restore fairness in a football game after a bad umpiring decision, such as by deflecting a shot at goal given as a penalty. Have you got a chewie on your boot? This cry from the stands is intended to disconcert a footy player who is taking a kick. The rivalry between football codes is as intense as rivalry on the pitch. Do you prefer aerial ping-pong (Aussie rules) or catch and kiss (soccer). Maybe you prefer mungo ball (rugby league) or thugby (rugby union). Whatever you prefer, we hope you enjoy! 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'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 American buddy or pal. As in They've been good mates from way back, or Never let a mate down. This generally masculine bond is known as mateship. Mate is a very serviceable word and is also commonly used as a form of address, as in G'day mate – and this can be said to someone who is a true mate, or just an acquaintance, or even someone you don't know but are meeting for the first time. Mate can also be used to refer to some bludger who ain't your mate in the slightest, like, You got a problem with that, mate? Maaate is a long, drawn-out way of saying mate. Used in various contexts, such as a friendly greeting when two mates are pleased to see one another, as a way of cajoling a mate into agreeing with you, or as a way of placating a mate who is getting a bit hot under the collar. 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.

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 of blog writing only to hear the buzz of a mosquito vibrate in your ear.  Given that this country is filled with mosquitos, Australians have invented several shorthand names for the world's deadliest and most annoying insect. Most popular among them is mozzie. That double Z combo is almost onomatopoeic in how it captures the sound of a mosquito's flight. Mossie is another spelling of mozzie.  Skeeter is another name for a mosquito, though not one you are likely to hear as often as mozzie.  Mozzies aren't the first bugs to infest the Macquarie blog. We have previously written about the triantelope, none other than the huntsman spider.  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.

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 day. Are you as game as Ned Kelly? In other words, are you imbued with the fighting spirit of Australia's national hero: are you plucky and resolute? If you prefer horses to people you can say you are as game as Phar Lap. Bog a duck is a description of extremely boggy land that was used by Ned Kelly in his famous Jerilderie Letter of 1879, and is still in use today. Apart from the adjectival use as in a bog-a-duck track, you can also come across it used verbally: you could bog a duck in that paddock, come the wet. Wombat-headed, meaning stupid, was a great Ned Kelly insult. You can read about it in the Macquarie Dictionary blog.  Who's robbing this coach? This rhetorical question meaning 'Stay out of it!' is another gift to Australian English from Ned Kelly. The story goes that Ned Kelly was bailing up a coach one day and proclaimed, ‘I'm going to rob all the men and f**k all the women’. To which one of the male passengers said, ‘You can't do that, you dreadful man', only to be shouted down by a female passenger saying, ‘Who's robbing this coach, you or Mister Kelly?’ Apparently, this problematic story was originally told in relation to Jesse James in the United States.  As with all good things, this blog must now come to an end. Sigh, such is life.   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.