Macquarie Dictionary

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Macquarie Dictionary

The Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary

Dictionary

A dictionary is a book of Alphabetical order listed words in a specific language, with definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of alphabetically listed words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon....
of Australian English

Australian English

Australian English is the form of the English language spoken in Australia....
. It also pays considerable attention to New Zealand English

New Zealand English

New Zealand English is the form of the English language used in New Zealand.The English language was established in New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century....
. Originally it was a publishing project of Jacaranda Press, a Brisbane educational publisher, for which an editorial committee was formed, largely from the Linguistics department of Macquarie University

Macquarie University

Macquarie University is an Australian public research university located in Sydney. Its main campus is in Macquarie Park and also has overseas campuses in Hong Kong and Singapore....
in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the List of cities in Australia by population in Australia, with a metropolitan area population of approximately 4.34 million . It is the List of Australian capital cities of New South Wales, and was the site of the first British Empire colony in Australia....
, Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
. It is published by Macquarie Dictionary Publishers Pty Ltd, a company specifically established for the task. In October 2006 it moved away from Macquarie University

Macquarie University

Macquarie University is an Australian public research university located in Sydney. Its main campus is in Macquarie Park and also has overseas campuses in Hong Kong and Singapore....
to the University of Sydney

University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation in Australia. It was established in Sydney in 1850. It is a member of Australia's "Group of Eight " universities that are highly ranked in terms of their research performance....
where it is located in Fisher Library.

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Encyclopedia

The Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary

Dictionary

Australian English

Australian English is the form of the English language spoken in Australia....
. It also pays considerable attention to New Zealand English

New Zealand English

Macquarie University

Macquarie University is an Australian public research university located in Sydney. Its main campus is in Macquarie Park and also has overseas campuses in Hong Kong and Singapore....
in Sydney

Sydney

Australia

Macquarie University

University of Sydney

Proper name

"A proper name [is] a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about" writes John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic , "but not of telling anything about it"....
s, particularly of Australian people and places, are included.

History

The original version of the Macquarie Dictionary was based on Hamlyn's Encyclopedic World Dictionary of 1971, which in turn was based on Random House

Random House

Random House, Inc. is the world's largest English-language general trade book publisher. It has been owned since 1998 by the large German Privately held company media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing....
's American College Dictionary
American College Dictionary

The American College Dictionary was the first Random House dictionary and was later expanded to create the Random House Dictionary of the English Language....
of 1947, which itself was based on the 1927 New Century Dictionary
Century Dictionary

The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia was one of the largest and most highly regarded encyclopedic dictionary of the English language. The first edition was published from 1889 to 1891 by The Century Company of New York, in six, eight, or ten volume versions in 7,046 pages with some 10,000 wood-engraved illustrations....
.

Since its first publication, in 1981, it has been progressively adopted by Australian schools, businesses and courts as their standard dictionary.

The second edition was published in 1991 and it introduced encyclopaedic content to many entries. The third edition, published in 1997, made use of an inhouse corpus of Australian writing, Ozcorp, to add a large number of examples of Australian usage, in a style reminiscent of the original Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language. Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989; as of December 2008 the dictionary's current editors have completed a quarter of the third edition....
. The fourth edition, published in 2005, increases the number of citations, includes etymologies for many phrases and pays particular attention to Australian regionalisms.

Spelling

The dictionary records standard Australian English spelling, which is closer to British

British English

British English or UK English is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere....
and Canadian English

Canadian English

Canadian English is the Variety of English language used in Canada. More than 26 million Canadians have some knowledge of English . Approximately 17 million speak English as their native language....
than American English

American English

PhonologyIn many ways, compared to English language in England, North American English is conservative in its phonology. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast of the United States , partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of English English at a time when those varieties we...
, with spellings like colour, centre, defence and practice/practise (noun/verb). It also gives -ise spellings first, listing -ize spellings as acceptable variants, unlike the Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language. Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989; as of December 2008 the dictionary's current editors have completed a quarter of the third edition....
and some other dictionaries of British English, that continue to prefer -ize to -ise in spite of the opposite tendency amongst the British general public (see Oxford spelling

Oxford spelling

Oxford spelling is the spelling used in the editorial practice of the Oxford English Dictionary and other English language dictionaries based on the OED, for example the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, and in academic journals and text books published by Oxford University Press....
).

Versions

A number of smaller versions are available, including a pocket edition, as well as companion volumes such as a thesaurus

Thesaurus

A thesaurus is a work that contains synonyms and sometimes antonyms, in contrast to a dictionary, which contains definitions and pronunciations....
. An online subscription-based version is also available. The latest edition of the main complete version of the Macquarie Dictionary is the fourth, which was published in 2005. The Macquarie Australian Slang Dictionary published in 2004 is an up-to-date record of Australian slang.

External links

Offline version offering the unabridged Macquarie Dictionary, the Concise Dictionary and the Macquarie Thesaurus with novel drag and drop functionality
Online version (paid subscription based)
Australian reference site for schools