Doomscroll, Ghostkitchen, Rizz Among 5,000 New Words Added In Merriam-Webster Dictionary

In a rare move, the Merriam-Webster dictionary announced on Thursday that it is fully revising and reimagining its world-famous dictionary with a fresh edition that would add more than 5,000 words, including the Gen-Z terms used on social media.

These words include ‘doomscroll’, ‘WFH’, ‘dumbphone’ and ‘ghostkitchen’. Other additions are ‘cold brew’, ‘rizz’, ‘farm-to-table’, ‘dad bod’, ‘adulting’, ‘cancel culture’ and ‘hard pass’. There is also ‘beast mode’ and ‘dashcam.’

The latest edition of the ‘Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary’ will be released on November 18, which is 22 years after the book’s last hard-copy update amid declining US sales for analogue dictionaries.

Notably, Merriam-Webster is the leading dictionary company in the US

and sells 1.5 million copies a year. Most dictionaries are regularly updated, but not fully overhauled like the ‘Collegiate’.

The new ‘Collegiate’ also includes enhanced entries for some top lookups, and more than 20,000 new usage examples. The latest update weighs at least 2.27 kg and removed two sections of the previous section that had fewer biographical and geographical entries to make room for the new content. Some obscure words have also been removed.

Merriam-Webster’s president, Greg Barlow, told The Associated Press that people no longer use dictionaries to learn the meanings of new words and use the internet. “We wanted to make the ‘Collegiate’ more useful, a better design, more interesting. We wanted it to be more rewarding to browse, more fun to look through, and to really be practical for research, but also a beautiful book,” he added.

He further said the company’s retail sales overall have generally held steady in the last few years despite a decline in dictionary sales. “There are people out there who just love books, and we love books.”

Meanwhile, Cambridge Dictionary also recently added thousands of new words, driven by social media and celebrities. A number of the new words were popularised by Gen Z and Gen Alpha like skibidi, delulu and broligarchy.

“Internet culture is changing the English language and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the Dictionary,” said Colin McIntosh, the lexical program manager at Cambridge Dictionary, in August.

Additionally, the new ‘Collegiate’ introduces curated word lists, such as words from the 1990s and “10 Words for Things that Often Go Unnamed.” It also has more word histories. Did you know “calculate” comes from the Latin for “pebble,” because ancient Romans used little stones to do addition and subtraction?

(with AP inputs)