In our latest update to Dictionary.com, we added more than 300 new words and definitions, and revised over 1,700 entries.
Many of the newly added terms are pulled straight from the headlines like Daesh, intersectionality, warmist, woke, and Zika virus. Several of the new words relate directly to the media, including lamestream, presstitute, and hot take.
Mainstream cultural conversations give Dictionary.com’s lexicographers an endless supply of words to research. In this update, users will find new senses of the word ghosting, which has spread like wildfire thanks to the rise of dating apps like Tinder. Originally an academic term, intersectionality is now widely used in popular culture to frame and analyze discussions, most recently about Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade. Fashion trends also make their mark on this update with the addition of the terms athleisure, lumbersexual, and mom jeans to Dictionary.com.
Gaming is often a source of neologisms, and the latest update includes Pokémon and Minecraft. Some words received lexicographical treatment because of their ties to recent cultural patterns like al desko, a term used to describe eating lunch at your desk, or free-range parenting, from the ongoing and often contentious debates about child rearing.
This is the third consecutive update that has expanded headwords and definitions related to gender and sexual identity. Users can now look up the terms hijra, misgender, panromantic, and ze on Dictionary.com
Here’s a selection of words added in this update with brief definitions:
al desko: eating at one’s desk in an office.
athleisure: a style of clothing inspired by athletic apparel but also worn as casual, everyday wear.
butthurt: mental distress or irritation caused by an overreaction to a perceived personal slight.
Daesh: a name used to refer to ISIS/ISIL, the radical Sunni Muslim organization.
deso: designated driver.
free-range parenting: a style of child rearing in which parents allow their children to move about without constant adult supervision, aimed at instilling independence and self-reliance.
ghosting: the practice of suddenly ending all contact with a person without explanation, especially in a romantic relationship.
health goth: a fitness enthusiast who is part of the goth subculture.
hijra: a person whose gender identity is neither male nor female, typically a person who was born male and dresses as a woman.
hot take: a superficially researched and hastily written journalistic piece, online post, etc., that presents opinions as facts and is often moralistic.
intersectionality:the theory that the overlap of various social identities, as race, gender, sexuality, and class, contributes to the specific type of systemic oppression and discrimination experienced by an individual.
lamestream: noting or relating to traditional print and broadcast media, when regarded as lacking the fairness, creativity, etc., of independent online news sources.
long-form: noting or relating to types of print or visual media content characterized by in-depth, lengthy narratives.
lumbersexual: a man whose style of dress and appearance is reminiscent of the ruggedly masculine stereotype of the lumberjack.
manspread: to sit with one’s legs far apart, taking up too much space on a seat shared with other people.
Minecraft: a sandbox video game with construction, crafting, exploration, and combat mechanics, available on many game platforms.
misgender: to refer to or address (a person, especially one who is transgender) with a pronoun, noun, or adjective that inaccurately represents the person’s gender or gender identity.
mom jeans: unstylish women’s jeans.
NBD: acronym for no big deal.
panromantic: noting or relating to a person who is romantically attracted to people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.
Pokémon: a media franchise including video games, animated television series, movies, card games, etc. that depict a fictional class of pet monsters and their trainers.
presstitute: a journalist or media source whose news coverage is considered to be inappropriately influenced by business interests, political motives, etc.
totes: totally.
train wreck: a person who has experienced a personal failure, disaster, etc.
warmist: a person who accepts global warming as a reality (a term used by people who reject the concept).
woke: actively aware of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those related to civil and human rights.
ze: occasionally used with a singular indefinite pronoun or singular noun antecedent in place of the definite masculine he or the definite feminine she.
Zika virus: a chiefly mosquito-borne virus of the genus Flavivirus that causes Zika, a mild illness.
