The online resource Dictionary.com has just announced their latest word additions, with many being inspired by the pandemic, others touching on race, social justice, identity and culture, along with a few that may just make you laugh.
Overall the site has added 600 new words and definitions, and even removed one word, “slave” as a noun. Instead of using it to refer to people, the site is replacing it with an adjective, “enslaved,” which now is a reference to the institution of slavery. Other changes include capitalizing “Indigenous,” and adding BIPOC, a.k.a. Black, Indigenous and people of color. “Overpolice” has been added to refer to excessive policing, as has “disenfranchisement,” meaning the depriving citizens of their rights.
Meanwhile, pandemic inspired additions include “hybrid learning,” “variants,” “strains,” “elbow bump,” “superspreader,” “Zoom,” and “doomscrolling,” as in obsessively checking social media and news sights for negative stories.
- Supposably– “as may be assumed, imagined or supposed.”
- Embiggen- to make or become bigger, a word that was used on an episode of “The Simpsons”
- Cromulent– also used on “The Simpsons,” meaning “acceptable or legitimate.”
- Second Gentlemen– the husband of second-ranking government officials, as in Vice PresidentKamala Harris’husbandDoug Emhoff.
- Deep Fake- a fake, digitally manipulated video or audio file
- Labradoodles– one of 23-new dog-inspired words. Others include Schnoodle, Yorkiepoo and Pomsky.
- Critical Race Theory- A conceptual framework that considers the impact of historical laws and social structures on the perpetuation of racial inequality
- Sponcon - short for sponsored content