Grove Spelling Dictionary
The Nut Grove

macadamia

Split the word after Macadam and it stops being difficult. The first seven letters are a Scottish surname, spelled the way that family spelled it, and the last three are the -ia that Latin puts on the end of a genus. The trouble is that spoken aloud the name sounds like a word about universities.

Say itmak-uh-DAY-mee-uh

M-A-C-A-D-A-M-I-A · Macadamia integrifolia

It is a surname with a botanical ending bolted on. Ferdinand von Mueller named the genus in 1857 for John Macadam, a Scottish born chemist and physician working in Melbourne. Everything up to the second m is a man's name, and everything after it is Latin.

An Australian rainforest tree from the coastal country of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales, now grown commercially in Hawaii, South Africa and Australia. The shell is thick enough to need a press, which is why the nuts are sold shelled.

7 spellings people write after hearing macadamia

macadammiaa doubled consonant
macedamiaa vowel with no colour
macaddamiaa doubled consonant
maccadamiaa doubled consonant
makadamiaa hard c
macademiaa vowel with no colour
mecadamiaa vowel with no colour