The Latest Breaking News from OED

Other foreign language additions include alamak, a cry of outrage in Singapore and Malaysia, and tapau, a Chinese word for takeaway

Lacking a word for that sensation when something is so cute you just can't handle it? Missing that special term for the moron in your life? Well, the new additions to the Oxford English Dictionary are here to help.

The Oxford English Dictionary has selected rizz as its word of 2023. If you’ve heard of it at all, you’ll probably have heard that it comes from the word charisma. However, the OED definition pins it down as “style, charm or attractiveness, and the ability to attract a romantic or…

Salon talks to Sarah Ogilvie, author of "The Dictionary People," about the "unsung heroes" who created the OED

In a 70-year crowdsourcing project, a motley global public sent in the words and definitions that would form the first OED. Ogilvie reveals the shocking stories behind the book’s birth

The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes who Created the Oxford English Dictionary is a celebration of words and word-people: authors, editors, publishers, linguists, lexicographers, philologists, obsessives, pedants. Its author, Sarah Ogilvie, was formerly an Oxford English Dictionary editor and wrote the 2013 book Words of the World: A Global History…

Coruscating was originally a sparkling synonym, but now we understand that it’s something more scathing

The linguist and lexicographer unearths the histories of the unsung heroes who created the Oxford English Dictionary

Newly-added words include koha – a gift or offering – and kōrero, meaning a conversation or chat