Dictionary.com on March 11, 2021 announced its latest addition of new words, which reflects the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on language and hits on a variety of additional themes relating to race, social justice, identity, and culture. The leading online dictionary has updated 7,600 entries, including 450 new entries and 94 new definitions in existing entries. The update continues its mission of not only documenting the ever-evolving English language, but also using words as an opportunity for discovery and education. Dictionary.com’s team of lexicographers is continuously updating entries to ensure they are useful and relevant to its audience.
“2021, so far, is still so much about the events of 2020—and this is true for our work as a dictionary,” said John Kelly, Managing Editor at Dictionary.com. “We continue to keep up with the many ways the pandemic has transformed our language. This includes, for instance, usage notes on capitalizing and spelling COVID-19, a term only added to the dictionary a year ago. This also includes an entry for the name of an application that, for so many of us, became synonymous with life during COVID-19: Zoom.”
“Our update also reflects how our society is reckoning with racism, including in language,” Kelly continued.
I – Word Understanding
Lexicographer – an author / editor of dictionary
Synonymous – having the same meaning / being strongly associated with something
Reckoning – the act of judging something as being good or bad
II – Have Your Say
1, How useful is the dictionary to you? How often and when do you usually use it?
2, It’s time to learn some new words. Let’s focus on new words/meaning brought about by COVID to our daily lives and culture. Can you guess the meaning of the following?
a, Telework
b, Blended learning
c, Superspreader
d, Doomscrolling
e, Sleep hygiene
f, Deepfake
g, Indoor voice (inside voice)
h, Designer dog
3, Race, social justice and identity remain prominent themes in Dictionary.com’s additions. Let’s take time to learn and remember some of these new words:
African American Language (AAL)
a, Finna (fin-uh) – fixing to; preparing and planning to do something
b, Chile (chahyl) – child
Race
c, BIPOC (bahy-pok) – Black, Indigenous, and People of Color)
d, Indigenous – must be capitalized when referring to people who are the original / original habitats of a region, or their descendants
802 Dictionary.com Announces New Words Relating to Covid, Social Justice, and More
