The Macquarie Dictionary's Word of the Year committee chose "mansplain", while the People's Choice award is, perhaps unsurprisingly for its common usage, "share plate".

Macquarie defines "mansplain" as follows:

"verb (t) Colloquial (humorous) (of a man) to explain (something) to a woman, in a way that is patronising because it assumes that a woman will be ignorant of the subject matter. [MAN + (EX)PLAIN with s inserted to create a pronunciation link with explain."

If you haven't heard of the term you would not be alone; its pedigree is uncertain.

But it did feature in The New York Times words of the year list in 2010, and has appeared in feminist writing in magazines such as The Nation, so its adoption in Australia is lagging a little behind that in the United States.

The Word of the Year committee felt it was "a much needed word and it was a clever coinage which captured neatly the concept of the patronising explanation offered only too frequently by some men to women".

The New York Times 2010 list likened the term to "a boor".

The People's Choice award, voted on by the public, was given to the term "share plate" which Macquarie defines as:

"noun, a serving in a restaurant designed as multiple small portions so that several diners can share the same dish."

Each year a series of honourable mentions make the list, words that did not win but that have entered the popular consciousness.

In 2014 those were:

• binge watching: noun the practice of viewing a favourite television series, seeing many episodes in one extended sitting.
• bamboo ceiling: noun a barrier created by prejudice which hampers the progress of Asian Australians to positions of leadership in government and business institutions.
• lifehacking: noun the application of strategies or shortcuts used to simplify or improve any aspect of one's life.

"Our viewing habits are changing. We can watch whatever we want to watch for as long as we want to watch it. So what do we do? We binge," Macquarie Dictionary editor Susan Butler said of the binge-watching phenomenon.

Ms Butler said of the newly minted term "lifehack": "It seems to have popular appeal and to belong to a set of ideas about how we can make our complicated lives easier. It belongs with decluttering and asking ourselves if our clothes give us joy or not, and, if not, relegating them to the bin."

However, the committee was less enamoured with "selfie sticks", which Macquarie defines as:

"noun A device which comprises an extendible rod with a flexible grip head for holding a camera, smart phone, etc., allowing the user to take a selfie from an appropriate distance and include more people in the frame, the camera being activated by a remote control or set to operate by a timer."

The committee said: "A dishonourable mention to the selfie stick for being inescapable."

The 2014 Word of the Year committee comprises Ms Butler, University of Sydney director of libraries Anne Bell, Fairfax (and Sydney Morning Herald) columnist John Birmingham, University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence and arts editor of news website The Conversation Catriona Menzies-Pike.

The Macquarie Dictionary has been published in print since 1981 and says it is "the complete record of English as it is used in Australia, from the colourfully colloquial to the highly technical".