The Merriam-Webster dictionary has just gotten bulkier. On Jan. 27, it was announced that more than 520 new words and meanings were placed into their dictionary. The words and meanings provide a window into how we live, work, as well as our language, culture and identity.
As the pandemic is ever present in our lives, a number of additions have connections to COVID-19. In its last update in March 2020, Merriam-Webster.com first introduced COVID-19 and terms connected to it.
In fact, the word COVID-19 went from coinage to the dictionary in lightning speed—34 days. Emily Brewster, senior editor of Merriam-Webster and a host of their podcast Word Matters, explained that release of these new words back in March was originally unscheduled. “There was a group of vocabulary that needed to be defined right away, and we realized that we could do this. So we did it,” Brewster said in the…
