November 21, 2022
“Bae,” “vax,” “verbing” and “zonkey” are among some 500 new words added to the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary as of Friday, November 18, reports Axios.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has released its seventh edition of the dictionary—adding new words to the game for the first time since 2018.
Words like “adorbs,” “bae,” “hangry” and “subtweet” are common in the current culture and seem like natural additions. “Amirite?”
Some food-related additions included”queso” and “matcha.”
Words that are a bit more obscure like “zonkey,” “vaquita” and “embiggen” also have been added.
“Dumpster” is a surprising addition in that it wasn’t already allowed. Until now, the term was categorized as a trademark in the dictionary, but now it’s a playable noun.
“So much about the new words for Scrabble [is a consequence] of the way dictionaries classify words,” per a tweet from Merriam-Webster.
“For example, VERB had always been playable, but now VERB is a *verb*! Which means that VERBED and VERBING are now playable. A grammatical distinction that allows for new plays.”
Research contact: @axios
