Thanks to social media, slang words and phrases like beige flag can go viral overnight in today’s world. But back when we wore neon jackets and blasted Ace of Base on our five-disc CD players, we had to rely on word of mouth to spread cool new phrases, often passed along on the playground or in phone conversations on our landlines. It was a simpler …
Read up on the hottest new words added to the Dictionary in our latest summer updates. We’re rounding up some of the newest words we’ve added to the dictionary…and this latest batch is sizzling! Our expert lexicographers continuously research, document, and, ultimately, define the words that are on the tip of every trend and tongue. Their work ensures Dictionary.com is the most comprehensive resource for …
We all know what the word preppy means, right? It’s the word we use to describe those rich kids that look down on anyone whose shoes cost less than a car. It’s the perfect word to describe the pompousness and snootiness of the crustiest of the upper crust. Or is it? Recently, the word preppy has found a newer meaning among the teenagers of Generation …
Hey, cool cats! We have created a quiz all about the lingo of the children of the 1940s through the 1960s, also known as the Baby Boomers. These fab words were “with it” before even Gen X knew what was funky—or how to walk, in some cases. Take this quiz and see if you can speak a Baby Boomer’s language!
The internet keeps on supplying us with an endless stream of trendy slang words that come from anywhere—from bizarre TikTok streams and YouTube videos featuring sentient toilets—and everywhere in between. Why are grown men called babygirl? What is the scuttlebutt on tush push and gyatt? What does it mean to be delulu? Are we doomed to a fate of enshittification? We have all of the …
Girl dinner. Girl math. Lazy girl job. Viral phrases and trends focused around the word girl are everywhere lately, blowing up on TikTok and spreading online and IRL. What’s behind the power of girl? To help you keep up with all the trends and their origins, we’ve gathered up all the latest girl terms into a single girl gallery. We’ll take a closer look at …
Information pollution, jawn, decision fatigue, jolabokaflod, grandfamily, NIL, algo, amalgagender. Unbox the new terms and meanings just added to Dictionary.com. by Nick Norlen, Senior Editor, and Grant Barrett, Head of Lexicography Our fall new words drop is here! The words don’t stop coming, so we’re updating the dictionary more frequently than ever. And not just with any words: this update includes an incredibly useful concentration …
Sometimes you don’t need an intricate phrase to express shock, dismay, or joy. Sometimes an emphatic interjection is all that’s required. An interjection is a word or phrase that expresses something in a sudden or exclamatory way, especially an emotion. Often, interjections are paired with facial expressions or hand gestures to really drive the point home about the feeling we have. Think about the interjection …
If you’re reading this in the US or Canada, you’re likely familiar with the sport of soccer. But, if you’re reading this pretty much anywhere else, then you probably know the same game rules and call it football. What’s the difference? How did we end up with two names, football and soccer, for the same sport? Let’s start in England in the 1800s. Young men, …
If you have to ask what it means to be cool, well, you probably aren’t cool. What is cool, though, is just how many slang words we’ve used over the years to talk about people and things that we think are fab, funky, fresh, groovy, fly, phat, lit, gnarly, rad, and the cat’s meow. And that is just a taste of the coolness we managed …
When Americans think of Canadian English, certain stereotypical Canadianisms found in pop culture might come to mind, such as the ubiquitous “eh” or the distinctly Canadian way of saying “about.” But there is so much more than that! Just like their counterparts in the United States, the people of the Great White North have a bunch of cool slang words for a whole range of …
