Oxford English Dictionary New Words 2022

[Autumn Pitz]

Thelatest crop of new words added to Oxford Dictionaries Online, from 'amazeballs' to 'zonkey', has been making headlines this month. Commentators have been amused, intrigued and even enraged by the addition of 'clickbait', 'side-eye', 'neckbeard', 'mansplain" and others.

Some of the new additions, like 'bedroom tax', have become a part of public discourse in the UK, while others reflect scientific discoveries: the 'olinguito' is a South American mammal first described in 2013.

Allison Wright, Editor at Oxford Dictionaries, explains: 'We never leave words out of dictionaries on the grounds that they aren't 'good English'. Similarly, if a word is used only in very informal contexts, or only by specific groups of people, or if it is offensive in some way, we make this clear in the dictionary entry.'

Oxford University Press operates two major language research programmes which serve as its hunting ground for new words: the Oxford English Corpus and the Oxford Reading Programme. The Corpus is made up of full-length documents, while the Reading Programme relies on an international network of volunteers, who submit shorter extracts. These are drawn from a variety of sources in English, from song lyrics to academic journals, and enable researchers to keep an eye on new words and meanings.

Once a new word has been identified, evidence is needed to prove that the word has been used in a variety of different sources, by more than one writer, before it can be considered for inclusion in one of the dictionaries. Evidence for new words must be recorded in writing, whether that means print books and newspapers, online sites and message-boards, or scripts for film and television.

In the past, a word needed to be in use for two or three years before it could be considered. The rapid pace of change in our digital world means that new terms can gain ground very rapidly, so this is no longer the case. But it does present another challenge to the lexicographers, since they now need to judge whether a new word is likely to stay with us or quickly fall out of usage. Once all these criteria have been considered, a word may be added to one of the dictionaries.

This recent crop of words was added to Oxford Dictionaries Online (ODO), a resource which aims to provide a snapshot of the ways in which English is used by people around the world today. Words are removed when they become obsolete, and entries are arranged so that the most common definitions are listed first: the first definition of 'car' is 'a road vehicle, typically with four wheels, powered by an internal-combustion engine and able to carry a small number of people'.

In June this year, we heard that 'selfie', 'flexitarian' and 'citizen science' - among more than 1000 others - were added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Unlike the ODO, the OED is a historical dictionary, which records the origins and development of each word, tracking hundreds or even thousands of years of etymological history.

Combining both accessibility and authority, The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins describes the origins and development of over 3,000 words and phrases in the English language. The book draws on Oxford's unrivalled dictionary research programme and language monitoring, and relates the fascinating stories behind many of our most curious terms and expressions in order to offer the reader a much more explicit account than can be found in a general English dictionary.

This absorbing volume is useful for language students and enthusiasts, but also an intriguing read for any person interested in the development of the English language and of language development in general. Includes an extended introduction on the history of the English language.

Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.

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In 1901, the word bondmaid was found missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. By all accounts, bondmaid was the only word to be lost from the first edition. No one knows how, and that is enough for a story, but there are other reasons I wrote The Dictionary of Lost Words.

The irony is, that despite my clumsy handling of words, I have always loved how writing them down in a particular way can create a rhythm, or conjure an image, or express an emotion. And I have refused to leave them be.

Then a few years ago, a friend suggested I read The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. It is a nonfiction account of the relationship between the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, James Murray, and one of the more prolific (and notorious) volunteers, who sent in examples of how certain words had been used in literature. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I was left with the impression that the most revered dictionary in the English Language was a particularly male endeavor. From what I could glean, all the editors were men, most of the assistants were men, most of the volunteers were men and most of the literature, manuals and newspaper articles used as evidence for how words were used, were written by men.

It took me a while to find the women, and when I did, they were cast in minor and supporting roles. There was Ada Murray, who raised 11 children and ran a household at the same time as supporting her husband in his role as editor. There were Edith Thompson and her sister Elizabeth, who volunteered for the Oxford English Dictionary from the publication of the first words in 1884 to the publication of the last in 1928. There were Hilda, Elsie and Rosfrith Murray, who all worked in the Scriptorium to support their father. And there were women whose poetry and prose were considered evidence for the meaning of one word or another. But in all cases, these women were outnumbered by their male counterparts, and history struggles to recall them.

I decided that the absence of women did matter, and that a lack of representation might mean that the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was biased in favor of the experiences and sensibilities of old, white, Victorian-era men.

Oxford University Press has one of the largest and most wide-ranging language research programmes in the world. Our most important resources are the Oxford English Corpus and the Oxford Reading Programme. The Corpus consists of entire documents sourced largely from the World Wide Web, while the Reading Programme is an electronic collection of sentences or short extracts drawn from a huge variety of writing, from song lyrics and popular fiction to scientific journals. It's based on the contributions of an international network of readers who are on the lookout for instances of new words and meanings or other language changes.

We continually monitor the Corpus and the Reading Programme to track new words coming into the language: when we have evidence of a new term being used in a variety of different sources (not just by one writer) it becomes a candidate for inclusion in one of our dictionaries. For every new dictionary or online update we assess all the most recent terms that have emerged and select those which we judge to be the most significant or important and those which we think are likely to stand the test of time.

In previous centuries dictionaries tended to contain lists of words that their writers thought might be useful, even if there was no evidence that anyone had ever actually used these words. This is not the case today. New terms have to be recorded in a print or online source before they can be considered: it's not enough just to hear them in conversation or on television, although we do analyse material from Internet message boards and TV scripts.

It used to be the case that a new term had to be used over a period of two or three years before we could consider adding it to a print dictionary. In today's digital age, the situation has changed. New terms can achieve enormous currency with a wide audience in a much shorter space of time, and people expect to find these new 'high-profile' words in their dictionaries. This presents an additional challenge to lexicographers trying to assess whether a term is ephemeral or whether it will become a permanent feature of the language.

People often send us words they have made up and ask if we will add their invented terms to one of our dictionaries. Unfortunately, the answer is probably no, because we generally only add words that have been used widely over a number of years: we assess this by looking at all the evidence we have in our files and databases. Of course, some invented words do catch on and become an established part of English, either because they fill a gap or because they are describing something new. Examples of this type of invented word include quark, spoof, and hobbit.

The German tradition, Wort des Jahres was started in 1971. The American Dialect Society's Word of the Year is the oldest English-language version, and the only one that is announced after the end of the calendar year, determined by a vote of independent linguists, and not tied to commercial interest.[citation needed] However, various other organizations also announce Words of the Year for a variety of purposes.

Since 1990, the American Dialect Society (ADS) has designated one or more words or terms to be the "Word of the Year" in the United States. In addition to the "Word of the Year", the society also selects words in other categories such as "Most Outrageous," "Most Creative," and "Most Likely to Succeed."

The Australian National Dictionary Centre has announced a Word of the Year each since 2006. The word is chosen by the editorial staff, and is selected on the basis of having come to some prominence in the Australian social and cultural landscape during the year.[1] The Word of the Year is often reported in the media as being Australia's word of the year,[2][3] but the word is not always an Australian word.

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