ICYMI, it’s been a hella important year for athleisure—and Merriam-Webster is on it.
A new release from the US dictionary, announced today, adds “ICYMI,” “hella,” and “athleisure,” along with “TMI,” “dox,” “microbead,” and “wacky tobacky” to its unabridged version.
“Hella,” popular for years in northern California as “very” or “a lot of,” has been on the fringe of usage, says associate editor Emily Brewster. It wasn’t until this year the editors thought it had really shown its staying power in American English.
“The threshold for something becoming a word is extremely low,” she says, “but to become a fully established member of the English language it’s much higher.” The team of about 40 editors who add new definitions looks for words that appear often enough in mainstream publications that the general public will need to look them up.
“Revenge porn”—when someone uploads graphic photos or videos online of someone else without their consent—for example, has come into public attention in the past year. Google said it would remove revenge porn links from its search index, and proposed anti-revenge porn legislation is popping up across the country.
Since 2012 the dictionary has released new words several times a year, a shift from the past, when changes were made once every few years. The constraints of texting and Twitter are causing more abbreviations to take hold in spoken and written language, Brewster says. Last year the dictionary added NSFW and WTF.
Here’s a sample of this year’s 2,000 added words and updated meanings:
athleisure (n): casual clothing designed to be worn both for exercising and for general use
Bitcoin (n): a digital currency created for use in peer-to-peer online transactions
cognitive map (n): a representation formed in the mind of one’s spatial environment
cold case (n): an unsolved criminal investigation (as of a homicide or abduction) that has stopped being actively pursued because of a lack of evidence
cold turkey (n): abrupt complete cessation without medication of the use of drugs by a drug addict
collapsar (n): a massive star that undergoes gravitational collapse especially after colliding with another star
compassion fatigue (n): 1. (medical) the physical and mental exhaustion and emotional withdrawal experienced by those who care for sick or traumatized people over an extended period of time; 2. apathy or indifference toward the suffering of others as the result of overexposure to tragic news stories and images and the subsequent appeals for assistance
dipsogenic (adj): producing thirst
dox (transitive verb), slang: to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge
farm share (n): a portion of a farm’s output available for sale through a community supported agriculture system and received in batches regularly throughout the growing season
fit and flare (adj): fitted through the waist and flaring out at or below the hips
FOMO (n), informal: fear of missing out: fear of not being included in something (such as an interesting or enjoyable activity) that others are experiencing
gastric banding (n): a laparoscopic surgical procedure for the treatment of severe obesity that involves placing an adjustable band around the upper stomach to create a small pouch which empties into the remaining stomach through a narrow outlet
giclée (n): 1. a process by which high-quality prints are produced using an ink-jet printer; 2. or giclée print: a print produced by the giclée process
hella (adv), slang: very, extremely
hella (adj), slang: a lot of
ICYMI (abbr): in case you missed it: used to draw attention to something published or posted online earlier
meet-cute (n): a cute, charming, or amusing first encounter between romantic partners (as in a movie)
microbead (n): a tiny sphere of plastic (such as polyethylene or polypropylene), especially as exfoliants in facial scrubs and body washes and to add texture to other personal care products (such as toothpastes and lip balms)
microcredit (n): credit in the form of microloans provided to impoverished individuals and groups
microlending (n): the lending of money in small amounts to impoverished individuals and groups who are unable to obtain loans from mainstream banks
microloan (n): a small loan typically for financing entrepreneurial projects by impoverished individuals and groups especially in poor or developing regions
Mx. (n), chiefly British: used as a gender-neutral title of courtesy
naff (adj), British, informal: lacking in style or good taste: vulgar and unfashionable
nomophobia (n): fear of being without access to a working cell phone
revenge porn (n): sexually explicit images of a person posted online without that person’s consent especially as a form of revenge or harassment
TMI (abbr): too much information
trigger warning (n) : a statement cautioning that content (as in a text, video, or class) may be disturbing or upsetting
urban fantasy (n): a genre of imaginative fiction featuring supernatural characters or elements in an urban setting; also: a work of urban fantasy
wacky tobacky (n), slang: marijuana
waggle dance (n): a series of figure-eight movements performed by a bee to indicate the direction and abundance of a distant food source