The Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary of Australian English. It also pays considerable attention to New Zealand English. 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 in Sydney, Australia. It is published by Macquarie Library Pty Ltd, a company specifically established for the task; in October 2006 it moved away from Macquarie University to the University of Sydney Library. It is notable for its extensive inclusion of encyclopedic content: a great many proper names, particularly of Australian people and places, are included. A dictionary is a list of words with their definitions, a list of characters with their glyphs, or a list of words with corresponding words in other languages. ... Australian English (AuE) is the form of the English language used in Australia. ... New Zealand English is the English spoken in New Zealand. ... Macquarie University is an Australian university located in Sydney. ... This article is about the metropolitan area in Australia. ... Macquarie University is an Australian university located in Sydney. ... Fisher Library, University of Sydney. ... Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon, 1902 An encyclopedia, encyclopaedia or (traditionally) encyclopædia,[1] is a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. ... 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 (1. ...

History

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 encyclopedic 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. The fourth edition, published in 2005, increases the number of citations and offers etymologies for phrases. The Oxford English Dictionary print set The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP), and is generally regarded as the most comprehensive and scholarly dictionary of the English language. ...

Spelling

The dictionary gives standard spellings in Australian English which reflect the derivation of Australian English from British English with spellings like colour, centre, defence for the main entries. It also gives -ise spellings first, listing -ize spellings as acceptable variants; unlike the Oxford English Dictionary and some other dictionaries of British English, that continue to prefer -ize to -ise in spite of the opposite tendency among the British general public. Diagram showing the geographical locations of selected languages and dialects of the British Isles. ... The Oxford English Dictionary print set The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP), and is generally regarded as the most comprehensive and scholarly dictionary of the English language. ...

Critical comment

It has at times been criticised for its omissions especially in the coverage of recent formations, a criticism that most new editions of dictionaries encounter because of the focus on new words. It has also been criticised for its pronunciations. While all the pronunciations in the Macquarie were written from scratch, over the various editions the drift towards accepting some variants from American English is evident (ceremony pronounced /se.rə.moʊ.ni/ for example). Some sections of the community find this disturbing but Australia is reflecting some worldwide changes in patterns of pronunciation triggered by American English.

Versions

A number of smaller versions are available, such as the pocket edition pictured here, as well as companion volumes such as a thesaurus. An online subscription-based version is also available. The word thesaurus is derived from 16th century New Latin, in turn from Latin thesaurus, from ancient Greek thesauros, store-house, treasury. Besides its meaning as a treasury or storehouse, it more commonly means a listing of words with similar, related, or opposite meanings (this new meaning of thesaurus dates...

External links

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

The latest edition of the main complete version of the Macquarie Dictionary is the fourth, which was published in 2005.