Welcome to our new words blog, where we share new and topical words, some of which were submitted by you via the suggest a word feature on our website. Been a long winter, right? Here are six new words to keep you warm while the chill lingers.  Blood harmony might sound like the title of a vampire novel but it is in fact a type of musical harmony attained by members of the same family. That explains Hanson and AC/DC.  Two new pandemic related words this month are coronacrisis, the global or local effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and covidiot: a person who doesn't abide by coronavirus restrictions. I'm sure we have all seen a few covidiots around.  We also have two cuddly animal words to warm your heart. Roaching is when a greyhound sleeps on its back with its legs in the air, like a dead cockroach (trust us, it's much cuter than it sounds). Sky puppy is a colloquial name for a flying fox, aww.  Finally, a big shout out to all murfers out there! That's mothers who love to surf.  Let us know if you have any other suggestions. We are always happy to hear new words, no matter how big or small a usage they may have. Be sure to vote for some of these when we post them on our Instagram stories. See other words suggested to the Macquarie Dictionary here.      

Each new edition of the Macquarie Dictionary features a foreword written by an esteemed Australian writer. For the Eighth Edition, we were honoured to welcome Kim Scott, author Taboo and the Miles Franklin Award winning That Deadman Dance. The words below represent a selection of those that stood out for Kim, which in turn represent just a fraction of the 3500 new entries included in the Macquarie Dictionary Eighth Edition. Kim’s foreword focuses on some of the Indigenous words included in the Eighth Edition. Kim notes that many of these words would once have been labelled simply as 'Aboriginal' but have since been updated with more understanding of their place within Indigenous culture and language groups. Take for example Ngangkari, from the Pitjantjatjara language, one of many Indigenous words included in the Macquarie Dictionary Eighth Edition.  ngangkari noun an Indigenous practitioner of bush medicine; healer. Kim Scott’s other word selections are often humorous or food related. Each of the six words below reflects changes to the way Australian English is used by the public. To read the rest, order your copy of the Macquarie Dictionary Eighth Edition and read the foreword for yourself.  hair doughnut noun a doughnut-shaped sponge or similar material used as the support for a doughnut bun or similar updo. rat tamer noun Colloquial a psychologist or psychiatrist. sadfishing noun Colloquial the practice adopted by some people, especially on social media, of exaggerating claims about their emotional problems to generate sympathy. schnitty noun Colloquial a schnitzel, especially a chicken schnitzel. stepmonster noun Colloquial (humorous) (sometimes derogatory) a stepmother. zoodle noun a spiralised strand of zucchini, sometimes used as a substitute for pasta.

Who fancies a winter dip down at the beach, or maybe at the local pool? The Aussie crawl is an Australian invented freestyle swimming stroke now used the world over.  Inspired by the Aussie crawl we have trawled the seas of the Macquarie Dictionary for other swimming related slang. While swimming you'll want to avoid the blind mullet or brown trout, a tube of excrement floating in water, also referred to as a Bondi cigar. I don't fancy reeling in that fish!  An aqua bog can refer either to a bogan who surfs or an excrement done while swimming in the ocean. You may be seeing a theme develop, so we will leave the meanings of code brown and pollywaffle to your imagination.  Togs and cossie are two slang names for swimming costumes, the latter being more common in New South Wales and the usage of both words being quite contentious topics Australia-wide. Lastly, spanner water is a nickname for extremely cold water. That's it for this week. Now pull on your budgie smugglers and do a bombie into the spanner water, but don't forget to look out for the brown trout.  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. 

In this special “iso edition” episode, we take a small detour from talking about the virus to chat with Chief Editor Alison Moore about one of her favourite things — pronunciation.  Join us as we explore our language: the ways we use it, the ways we abuse it, and the ways we ultimately change it.  Subscribe now on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify or your favourite podcast app to get the latest episode delivered direct to your inbox.   Words & Definitions petri dish algae route root hedonism/hedonist opthamology/opthamalogist   Additional Links Read more about the topics and themes discussed: The shifting sounds of words   Acknowledgements Word for Word is produced by Macmillan Audio Australia for Macquarie Dictionary and Pan Macmillan Australia.  Music used in this episode is by Broke For Free, available from the Free Music Archive and used by permission of the artist. Find more music by Broke for Free including The Gold Lining; and If. Our logo is by Amy Sherington. All sound effects and clips are public domain, royalty-free, or used by permission. If you like Word for Word, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! It only takes a minute and it helps other people discover the show.

Beautiful words don't just sound beautiful, some roll off the tongue with ease, some hit the air in sharp tones while others stretch out as you meander over syllables and roll certain letters. Some words evoke images and feelings as much as meaning.  Below are six beautiful words to warm you this winter. Why not test out how they sound?  Comment below if you think there are any other words worthy of the list and you might see them in an upcoming blog. You can also read the other entries in our beautiful words series here on our blog.  

More than 3,500 new entries have been added to the new, Macquarie Dictionary Eighth Edition. The words reflect changes in our usage of Australian English since the Seventh Edition was published in 2017. Below is a selection of these new words which reflect changing perspectives of our language.  Our inclusion of environmental words reflects the strong public consciousness of environment and sustainability issues in recent years. Two new words included in the Eight Edition include climate strike and eco-anxiety climate strike noun a protest against lack of action on climate change, held within school or work hours. eco-anxiety noun feelings of distress and fear brought on by the effects of climate change. Indigenous words have also gained prominence in recent times. Macquarie Dictionary recently published new ebook guides to several indigenous languages. Scar tree and ngangkari are examples of some of the new words related to Indigenous language and culture that are included in the Eighth Edition. ngangkari (say 'ngung-guh-ree)  noun an Indigenous practitioner of bush medicine; healer. [Pitjantjatjara: literally, traditional healer] scar tree noun a tree of southern and eastern Australia which has had sections of bark or wood removed as part of traditional Aboriginal activities, often for the construction of shelter, watercraft, containers, etc. To round off our preview of the Eighth Edition, let's look at a couple of Macquarie Word of the Year winners. Described by the committee as a term that captured the zeitgeist of the year, cancel culture was crowned 2019 Word of the Year.  cancel culture noun the attitudes within a community which call for or bring about the withdrawal of support from a public figure, such as cancellation of an acting role, a ban on playing an artist's music, removal from social media, etc., usually in response to an accusation of a socially unacceptable action or comment. Also, call-out culture, outrage culture. 2018 Word of the Year, Me Too still resonates around Australia Me Too adjective 1.  of or relating to the Me Too movement: Me Too posts on social media. 2.  of or relating to an accusation of sexual harassment or sexual assault, especially as having occurred at some time in the past and which has since remained undisclosed. –verb (t) 3.  to accuse (someone) of having committed sexual harassment or sexual assault, especially in the past: to be Me Tooed. Also, me too, Me-Too, me-too.  Lastly, something a little lighter. We think the Macquarie Dictionary Eighth Edition has plenty of BDE:     noun Colloquial a sense of self-confidence, unaccompanied by arrogance or conceit.  Also, big dick energy. [from the supposed self-assuredness possessed by a man with a large penis]  These examples represent a tiny portion of the new words included in the Eight Edition. With a beautiful cover design and an updated understanding of Australian English, we know the Macquarie Dictionary Eighth Edition will sit proudly alongside its predecessors.

The Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia, Second Edition is a unique tool for exploring and understanding the lives and cultures of Australia's First Peoples. Combining the magic of maps with the latest data from the 2016 Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Atlas allows us to explore a visual history of Indigenous Australia.  About the contributors This second edition of the Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia is a collabroative publication of the Australian National University, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Macquarie Dictionary. General Editors Bill Arthur and Frances Morphy have been researching Indigenous affairs and working closely with Indigenous communities for several decades. In 2001 they began working on the first edition of the atlas, which took out the award of Overall Winner in the 2006 Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing (EEPA). In 2017, they began working on this second edition of the Atlas. Across both editions, there have been over 40 contributors who have researched, written and mapped the content in the Atlas under the general editorship of Bill and Frances. One of the primary aims for this second edition was to increase the presence of Indigenous people contributing to the project. These contributors are drawn from a wide variety of places and professions - from academia, the arts world, Indigenous organisations and the public service. A full list of chapter contributors is available here. About the cover art The cover art, titled Kungkarrangkalpa Tjurkurpa, is a collaborative painting made by Anawari Inpiti Mitchell, Angilyiya Tjapitji Mitchell, Lalla West, Jennifer Nginyaka Mitchell, Eileen Tjayanka Woods, Lesley Laidlaw and Robert Woods at the Papulankutja Artists group in the Northern Territory. The Seven Sisters Songline refers to the Pleiades constellation. It travels from the west to the east across the far western and central deserts. The sisters are pursued by a man, Yurla in the west and Wati Nyiru further east, who is a shapeshifter with transformative powers. He becomes particularly besotted with one of the sisters and pursues them endlessly in order to possess them. Today, this saga is visible in the Orion constellation and the Pleiades star cluster as a constant reminder of the consequences of attempting to possess something through wrongful means. Cover Art: "Kungkarrangkalpa Tjurkurpa", 2015, a collaborative painting made by Anawari Inpiti Mitchell, Angilyiya Tjapitji Mitchell, Lalla West, Jennifer Nginyaka Mitchell, Eileen Tjayanka Woods, Lesley Laidlaw and Robert Woods  About the maps There are several types of maps in the atlas. Among those featured are thematic maps which indicate the occurrence of phenomena across parts of the country, or an event or feature at particular locations and chloropleth maps which show the distribution of socio-economic data. Also featured are choropleth maps, maps with proportional symbols, column maps, as well as graphs, charts and illustrations. More information is available within the atlas itself. Earlier attempts to map Indigenous people at the national level include Norman Tinsdale's iconic map 'Tribal boundaries in Aboriginal Australia', based on research that had been carried out between 1930 and 1974. This map is discussed in detail within the book, but it was "significant in the genesis of the atlas." The version of the map used in the Atlas is an adaptation of Tindale's map. It includes "Indigenous group boundaries existing at the time of first European settlement in Australia, as far as they could be determined. It is not intended to represent contemporary relationships to land." Earlier examples of national mapping tended to deal with just single subjects. While acknowledging and drawing on them, this atlas surveys a comprehensive range of cultural, social and economic traits in a large set of national maps. Find out more The Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia is available in hardback and as a fixed-layout ebook. This ebook is available as part of Apple's Volume Purchase program which allows educational institutions to purchase copies in volume and distribute to students and teachers for use in the classroom and at home. There is also a comprehensive Teacher's Guide available for free download.