Words In Their Natural Environment

Meet the Dictionary's New Words

openbooksorg:

amandaonwriting:

From Merriam-Webster’s Peter Sokolowski, here’s the full list of words

(we added a few notations about why certain words were added, via the m-w.com press release):

aha moment n (1939) : a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension [Oprah Winfrey’s signature phrase]

brain cramp n (1982) : an instance of temporary mental confusion resulting in an error or lapse of judgment

bucket list n (2006) : a list of things that one has not done before but wants to do before dying [popularized by the movie title]

cloud computing n (2006) : the practice of storing regularly used computer data on multiple servers that can be accessed through the Internet [technology]

copernicium n (2009) : a short-lived artificially produced radioactive element that has 112 protons

craft beer n (1986) : a specialty beer produced in limited quantities : microbrew

earworm n (1802) 1 : corn earworm 2 : a song or melody that keeps repeating in one’s mind [“this summer’s example being the inescapable Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen.”]

energy drink n (1904) : a usually carbonated beverage that typically contains caffeine and other ingredients (as taurine and ginseng) intended to increase the drinker’s energy

e-reader n (1999) : a handheld electronic device designed to be used for reading e-books and similar material

f-bomb n (1988) : the word fuck — used metaphorically as a euphemism

flexitarian n (1998) : one whose normally meatless diet occasionally includes meat or fish

game changer n (1993) : a newly introduced element or factor that changes an existing situation or activity in a significant way

gassed adj (1919) … 2 slang : drained of energy : spent, exhausted

gastropub n (1996) : a pub, bar, or tavern that also offers meals of high quality

geocaching n (2000) : a game in which players are given the geographical coordinates of a cache of items which they search for with a GPS device

life coach n (1986) :  an advisor who helps people make decisions, set and reach goals, or deal with problems

man cave n (1992) : a room or space (as in a basement) designed according to the taste of the man of the house to be used as his personal area for hobbies and leisure activities

mash-up n (1859) : something created by combining elements from two or more sources: as a : a piece of music created by digitally overlaying an instrumental track with a vocal track from a different recording  b : a movie or video having characters or situations from other sources  c : a Web service or application that integrates data and functionalities from various online sources [“Whether it’s a politician contradicting him or herself with excerpts from different speeches shown in quick succession or Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, mixing Jay-Z with the Beatles, we’ve come to expect combined and rearranged elements that bring new perspectives and new creativity to our culture with mash-ups,” says editor Sokolowski. “It’s a recent phenomenon, made possible with digital editing, and it has a fun and descriptive name.”]

obesogenic adj (1986) :  promoting excessive weight gain :  producing obesity

sexting n (2007) : the sending of sexually explicit messages or images by cell phone

shovel-ready adj (1998) of a construction project or site : ready for the start of work 

systemic risk n (1982) : the risk that the failure of one financial institution (as a bank) could cause other interconnected institutions to fail and harm the economy as a whole [the global financial crisis]

tipping point n (1959) : the critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place

¹toxic adj  (1664) … 4 : relating to or being an asset that has lost so much value that it cannot be sold on the market

underwater adj (1672) … 3 : having, relating to, or being a mortgage loan for which more is owed than the property securing the loan is worth

Any words that you don’t think should have been added - or maybe which should have already been there?

11 More Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent

copyeditor:

nevver:

1. Seigneur-terraces (French)
   Coffee shop dwellers who sit at tables a long time but spend little money.
2. Ya’arburnee (Arabic)
   This word is the hopeful declaration that you will die before someone you love deeply, because you cannot stand to live without them. Literally, may you bury me.
3. Schlimazel (Yiddish)
   Someone prone to bad luck. Yiddish distinguishes between the schlemiel and schlimazel, whose fates would probably be grouped under those of the klutz in other languages. The schlemiel is the traditional maladroit, who spills his coffee; the schlimazel is the one on whom it’s spilled.
4. Packesel (German)
   The packesel is the person who’s stuck carrying everyone else’s bags on a trip. Literally, a burro.
5. L’esprit de l’escalier (French)
   Literally, stairwell wit—a too-late retort thought of only after departure.
6. Hygge (Danish)
   Denmark’s mantra, hygge is the pleasant, genial, and intimate feeling associated with sitting around a fire in the winter with close friends.
7. Spesenritter (German)
   Literally, an expense knight. You’ve probably dined with a spesenritter before, the type who shows off by paying the bill on the company’s expense account.
8. Cavoli Riscaldati (Italian)
   The result of attempting to revive an unworkable relationship. Literally, reheated cabbage.
9. Bilita Mpash (Bantu)
   An amazing, pleasant dream. Not just a “good” dream; the opposite of a nightmare.
10. Litost (Czech)
    Milan Kundera described the emotion as “a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.”
11. Murr-ma (Waigman, language of Australia)
    To walk alongside the water while searching for something with your feet.

Add the Filipino word “gigil.”

Personally, I’ve never been interested in disguising myself as a superhero or an orc. But during my talk with Rosenberg, I suddenly recalled a horrifying sartorial moment from my past. In high school, I sometimes wore suspenders as an homage to Michael Steadman—my favorite character on the TV show Thirtysomething. If there’s anything lamer than dressing up as a wizard from a fantasy film franchise, it’s dressing up as a yuppie executive from a middlebrow dramedy.

Source:

The more sober-minded Comic-Con-ers complain about the amount of ink the cosplayers get, but the fact is they have a substantial presence. They’re impossible to ignore. My rough estimate is that at least 10-15 percent of the people I see here are elaborately costumed. It serves as a sort of shibboleth. Or mating call.

Source:

To me these women were not only forging in the smithies of their body-logos radical emancipatory epistemologies — the source code of our future liberation — but also they were fundamentally rewriting Fanon’s final call in Black Skin, White Masks, transforming it into “O my body, make me always a woman who questions … my body” (both its oppressions and interpellations and its liberatory counter-strategies).

-Junot Diaz

What began to be clear to me as I read these women of color — Leslie Marmon Silko, Sandra Cisneros, Anjana Appachana, and throw in Octavia Butler and the great [Cherríe] Moraga of course — was that what these sisters were doing in their art was powerfully important for the community, for subaltern folks, for women writers of color, for male writers of color, for me. They were heeding [Audre] Lorde’s exhortation by forging the tools that could actually take down master’s house. To read these sisters in the 1980s as a young college student was not only intoxicating, it was soul-changing. It was metanoia.

-Junot Diaz

METANOIA: a transformative change of heart; especially: a spiritual conversion (merriam-webster.com)

Much of the early genesis of my work arose from the 1980s and specifically from the weird gender wars that flared up in that era between writers of color. I know you remember them: the very public fulminations of Stanley Crouch versus Toni Morrison, Ishmael Reed versus Alice Walker, Frank Chin versus Maxine Hong Kingston… The brothers criticizing the sisters for being inauthentic, for being anti-male, for airing the community’s dirty laundry, all from a dreary nationalist point of view…  And for me, what was fascinating was that the maps these women were creating in their fictions — the social, critical, cognitive maps; these matrixes that they were plotting — were far more dangerous to the structures that had me pinioned than any of the criticisms that men of color were throwing down.

-Junot Diaz

Fulmination: noun 1. a violent denunciation or censure: a sermon that was one long fulmination. 2. violent explosion. Origin: 1495–1505 (dicitionary.reference.com)

The rhetoric of austerity, sounded loudest from Republicans but often echoed by far too many Democrats, is a language of belt-tightening, of shared sacrifice, of somber speeches by pompous politicians who proclaim that they feel your pain while announcing budget cuts that freeze salaries, lay off workers and force more work onto those who remain.

Molina, an immensely accomplished TV and stage actor on both sides of the Atlantic, would have his Hollywood apogee as Dr. Otto Octavius, better known as the many-tentacled supervillain Doc Ock, in Raimi’s second Spidey installment, viewed by many critics as a darker and better film than the first one.

“Given the entertainment bacchanalia at the disposal of young men and women of your generation, I am grateful to anyone anywhere who sets aside the hours necessary to read my little book… Given the final futility of our struggle, is the fleeting jolt of meaning that art gives us valuable? Or is the only value in passing the time as comfortably as possible? What should a story seek to emulate, Augustus? A ringing alarm? A call to arms? A morphine drip?”