Tag archives: new words
Trout pout, misery memoir, and Nollywood: ODO quarterly update August 2011
Every quarter, we update the current English dictionary in Oxford Dictionaries Online with new words and meanings that have made it into common usage. For this update, we’ve added dozens of words, from aha moment to yuck factor. You might do a fist pump (on your own) or a more subtle fist bump (with someone [...]
A century of defining our language
Since the publication of its first edition in 1911, the revolutionary Concise Oxford Dictionary has remained in print and gained fame around the world over the course of eleven editions. This month heralds the publication of the centenary edition: the new 12th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary contains some 400 new entries, including [...]
Harry Potter and the Linguistic Innovator
This is not a shockingly grammatical sequel to the acclaimed series, but a chance to revel in the magically inventive language of the Harry Potter books. The release of the final Harry Potter film this week marks the end of an era for a generation of book and film lovers, having made author J. K. [...]
The oxygen of publicity
This Monday past, US Congressman Anthony Weiner held a press conference at which he announced that he had engaged in activities that are unlikely to assist him in furthering any political ambitions he may have. Specifically, he admitted to sending risqué photographs of himself to a number of women, some via Twitter and some via [...]
Schmick new words added to Oxford Dictionaries Online
We’ve managed to spare a few femtoseconds in our busy schedule to add some schmick new words to Oxford Dictionaries Online. Whether you enjoy crafting, free running, or just surfing the Internet on your lappy, you’re sure to find something to interest you amongst the new additions. The world of computers and social networking continues [...]
GTL, DTS, and T-shirt time: a look at Jersey Shore’s lingo
As a New Jersey native and self-confessed reality TV junkie, I enjoy watching the television show Jersey Shore, and recognizing some of the local vocabulary – terms like benny (a non-local who comes down to the Shore, usually used in a pejorative sense) and youse (an informal plural of ‘you’). The show also introduced me to [...]
Has the culture of the ‘celeb’ begun to decline?
The Oxford English Corpus, our unique two-billion word database of real twenty-first century English, shows that the use of celebrity has risen steadily since the year 2000 – but the use of the informal abbreviation celeb has dropped since 2006. Perhaps this suggests that the public may be starting to tire of these trashy, wannabe, [...]
What do you call a baby owl and other baby animals?
We’re frequently asked whether there is a word for a specific baby animal in Oxford Dictionaries Online. The list below shows a list of animals with the name of the young animal next to it. Did you know, for example, that a baby eel is an elver, and a baby hare a leveret? Enjoy browsing [...]
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