Feb. 7 (UPI) — Merriam-Webster added more than 1,000 new words to its dictionary Tuesday, reacting to changes in pop culture and technology.
It’s the first time Merriam-Webster added words to its website listing since 2014, writing, “this is a significant addition to our online dictionary, reflecting the breadth of English vocabulary and the speed with which we seek information.”
The dictionary’s staff explained the evolving process.
“Just as the English language constantly grows, so does the dictionary,” the company wrote on its website. “More than 1,000 new words have been added, including terms from recent advances in science, borrowings from foreign languages, and words from tech, medicine, pop culture, sports and everything in between.”
The company also noted changes in definitions: “These new entries also highlight the old-fashioned skill of crafting useful and readable definitions that require the expertise and experience of our unique staff.”
Some of the biggest changes involved technology.
It added binge watch, net neutrality, abandonware, botnet, photobomb, ghost someone, NSFW listicles and humblebrags.
“We now see that new tech terms are more about what we do with technology — how it is managed, deployed and organized — than giving a name to the technology itself,” the site said.
Here are some of the added words by category:
Sports: Airball, up-fake, five-hole
Politics: Town hall, truther, SCOTUS, FLOTUS.
Medicine: supercentenarian, EpiPen, urgent care.
Sciences: CRISPR, phytoremediation, microbiome.
Food: Arancini, EVOO, macaron, santoku, chef’s knife.
The dictionary also added familiar words combined “to give us metaphors or imagery,” including train wreck, side-eye, weak sauce.
Verb phrases include: ride shotgun, walk back an opinion, throw shade, face-palm, and geek out. A new compound term is food insecure.
“All of these words have been observed, collected and researched, with many examples in context used to write definitions that explain both basic meanings and specific usage,” the dictionary wrote.
