We have some new words to describe our hellscape.
Dictionary.com added more than 300 new words Tuesday and more than 1,200 new and revised definitions for existing words. The update comes as the dictionary works to keep up with the “ever-changing English language.”
“The sheer range and volume of vocabulary captured in our latest update to Dictionary.com reflects a shared feeling that change today is happening faster and more than ever before,” John Kelly, senior director of editorial at Dictionary.com, said in a statement.
“Our team of lexicographers is documenting and contextualizing that unstoppable swirl of the English language – not only to help us better understand our changing times, but how the times we live in change, in turn, our language.”
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New words added to Dictionary.com
The 313 new words added to Dictionary.com range from a variety of topics, from modern problems and identity to pop culture and politics.
Some of popular additions include “deadass,” “hellscape,” “petfluencer” and “woke.” Here are the new words and what they mean:
- Bedwetting: exhibition of emotional overreaction, as anxiety or alarm, to events, especially major decisions or outcomes.
- Cakeism: the false belief that one can enjoy the benefits of two choices that are in fact mutually exclusive, or have it both ways.
- Deadass: genuinely, sincerely, or truly; in fact.
- Fan service: material added to a work of fiction for the perceived or actual purpose of appealing to the audience, used especially of material that is risqu or sexual in nature
- Hellscape: a place or time that is hopeless, unbearable, or irredeemable.
- Liminal space: a state or place characterized by being transitional or intermediate in some way, or any location that is unsettling, uncanny, or dreamlike.
- Multisexual: noting or relating to a person who is sexually or romantically attracted to people of more than one gender, used especially as an inclusive term to describe similar, related sexual orientations such as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, etc.
- Nearlywed: a person who lives with another in a life partnership, sometimes engaged with no planned wedding date, sometimes with no intention of ever marrying.
- Northpaw: an athlete, usually a pitcher or boxer, who is right-handed or competes as a right-hander.
- Petfluencer: a person who gains a large following on social media by posting entertaining images or videos of their cat, dog, or other pet.
- Pinkwashing: an instance or practice of acknowledging and promoting the civil liberties of the LGBTQ+ community, but superficially, as a ploy to divert attention from allegiances and activities that are in fact hostile to such liberties.
- Queerbaiting: a marketing technique involving intentional homoeroticism or suggestions of LGBTQ+ themes intended to draw in an LGBTQ+ audience, without explicit inclusion of openly LGBTQ+ relationships, characters, or people.
- Rage farming: the tactic of intentionally provoking political opponents, typically by posting inflammatory content on social media, in order to elicit angry responses and thus high engagement or widespread exposure for the original poster.
- Self-coup: a coup d’état performed by the current, legitimate government or a duly elected head of state to retain or extend control over government, through an additional term, an extension of term, an expansion of executive power, the dismantling of other government branches, or the declaration that an election won by an opponent is illegitimate.
- Superdodger: anyone who, for unverified reasons, remains uninfected or asymptomatic even after repeated exposure to a contagious virus.
- Talmbout: a phonetic spelling representing an African American Vernacular English pronunciation of talking about, used especially online.
- Tifo: a coordinated display, including large banners, flags, and sometimes signs or cards, executed cooperatively or performed in unison by the most fervent supporters and ultra fans in the stadium.
- Trauma dumping: unsolicited, one-sided sharing of traumatic or intensely negative experiences or emotions in an inappropriate setting or with people who are unprepared for the interaction.
- Woke: of or relating to a liberal progressive orthodoxy, especially promoting inclusive policies or ideologies that welcome or embrace ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.
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Dictionary.com updates antisemitism
Dictionary.com said one of its most notable updates was adjusting anti-Semitism to antisemitism. The decision to remove the hyphen and fully lowercase the word was done because it’s the “widely preferred single word form that Jewish groups, and many style guides, including those of major publications, have also adopted.”
The definition of the word, which is “discrimination against or prejudice or hostility toward Jews,” does not change.
How does Dictionary.com add words?
Dictionary.com says it doesn’t make up words – words are added “because they’re real – because they’re really used by real people in the real world.”
Dictionary.com uses the following criteria to determine whether a word should be added:
- It’s a word that’s used by a lot of people.
- It’s used by those people in largely the same way.
- It’s likely to stick around.
- It’s useful for a general audience.
Follow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jordan_mendoza5.
