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March 6, 2018 by Gary Price

Merriam-Webster Adds 850 New Words and Definitions to Online Version of Dictionary (Merriam-Webster.com)

March 6, 2018 by Gary Price

From Merriam-Webster.com:

A big batch of new words and new definitions for existing words has just been added to our dictionary at Merriam-Webster.com: 850 terms that come from a cross-section of our linguistic culture.

Here’s are two paragraphs from the MW blog post that includes a few new entries.

Everyday terms that have seen increasing use include life hack and hate-watch. Bandwidth is now often used figuratively to mean “emotional or mental capacity.” Our online lives have given us embiggen and subtweet. Even more colorful language is on display with dumpster fire, used to mean “disaster,” and mansplain, a word that dates back only to 2008 but has quickly shown its utility.
Finally, we see the inclusion of an increasing number of interjections and respellings, in part because communication via electronic text increasingly uses approximations of speech, including hmm, ooh, mm-hmm, and, welp, welp. Which just goes to show that the dictionary can still be useful for providing meanings even when you’re speechless.

Direct to Complete Post
See Also: Merriam-Webster Adds Made-Up Word From ’The Simpsons’ to its Dictionary (via Daily Dot)

Filed under: News

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About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.

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