Merriam-Webster has added 200 new words and definitions to its dictionary.
The new additions are added based on widespread use over time, and offer a window into the world today, according to Merriam-Webster.com.
“The one constant of a vibrant living language is change,” explains Gregory Barlow, President of Merriam-Webster. “We continuously encounter new ways of describing the world around us, and the dictionary is a record of those changes.”
Some of the new additions include nepo baby, cash grab and creepy-crawly.
On “Book-tok” you will often hear about genres like true crime and beach reads, now they have an official spot in the dictionary. Music has brought freestyle and the jazz-like sounds of a jam band to the conversation. If video games are more your style try a dungeon crawler, a video game “primarily focused on defeating enemies while exploring a usually randomly generated labyrinthine or dungeon-like environment.”
Foodies are trying new things like burrata, capicola and street corn. If you enjoy a beer then you’ve probably heard about the International Bitterness Unit, “used to assess the concentration of a bitter compound found in hops in order to provide information about how bitter a beer is.”
Just as science and nature evolve so does the dictionary to include new terms like heat index and the dreaded spotted lanternfly.
Social media has taken over our lives and our dictionary. If you’re shadow banned then you won’t show up on someone’s For You page. But we should all get off our phones and touch grass anyway.
Other things that have a spot in the modern lexicon include snog, IDGAF and badassery.
It’s a presidential election year so you may hear terms such as MAGA, far left, far right, classical liberalism, and late capitalism commonly used in political commentary.
“Our lexicographers monitor a huge range of sources to select which words and definitions to add,” says Peter Sokolowski, Editor at Large for Merriam-Webster. “From academic journals to social media, these give us a very thorough view of the English language.”
In case you’re wondering about the rest of the new words that made the list. We contacted Merriam-Webster and were told they “never disclose the full list of new words.”
Leave a Reply