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The Australian National Dictionary Centre based at the Australian National University in Canberra has selected 'green-on-blue' as its word of the year.
The centre says the term refers to an attack by a force regarded as neutral.
It has come to prominence as a reference to attacks by Afghan soldiers on their Coalition partners.
Centre director Dr Amanda Laugesen says many military terms have become part of general language use.
"It's coming from the way in which military maps designate different forces, so green friendly," she said.
Dr Laugeson says while green-on-blue is not exclusively Australian, it has been prominently used due to the number of Australian soldier deaths in 2012.
"In these circumstances we felt it appropriate to recognise what has undeniably become a part of our national consciousness, our history and our language, especially amongst younger generations," she said.
The centre says military conflict has previously generated new terms in the Australian lexicon such as digger and Anzac.
Green-on-blue won out against other short-listed words brotox, fossil farming, qubit and fourth age.
"Brotox was our fun word on our shortlist," Dr Laugesen said.
"Brotox has been around since last year, growing in popularity in 2012, and perhaps has increased relevance for Australians due to our fascination with, and speculation about, the ongoing transformation of Shane Warne."
Dr Laugesen says 'fossil farming' has been around for a few years, but came to prominence in 2012.
"One of the reasons we put that on our list is that that seems to be an Australianism," she said.
"We were looking for words that had some relevance to Australian culture, society, politics."
Dr Laugesen says 'qubit' means a quantum bit or quantum piece of information.
"An American scientist theorised the notion of the qubit," she said.
"But this year the big breakthrough was that a team of Australian engineers made the breakthrough that will lead to the construction of a quantum computer."
The 'fourth age' refers to people aged 85 years or older.
"It really reflects our ageing society," Dr Laugesen said.
Topics: university-and-further-education, languages, english, act, canberra-2600
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