The Cambridge Dictionary, the world’s largest online dictionary, has added over 6,000 new words to its lexicon this year. Among these additions are popular slang terms like “skibidi” and “tradwife”, which are gaining traction among young people.
Skibidi, pronounced SKIH-bih-dee, is a term coined by the creator of an animated YouTube series that can mean “cool” or “bad” or be used as a joke with no real meaning. Tradwife refers to a married mother who cooks, cleans and posts on social media. The dictionary’s lexical program manager Colin McIntosh explained that these terms are part of internet culture and reflect the changing nature of language.
Other new words added by the Cambridge Dictionary include “delulu”, which means believing things that are not real or true, and “forever chemical”, a harmful substance that remains in the environment for a long time. The dictionary uses data from its Cambridge English Corpus database to monitor how new words are used by different people and add them to the lexicon if they have staying power.
Expert Christian Ilbury noted that while some of these terms may have longer histories than expected, their increased visibility is largely due to social media platforms like TikTok. The dictionary’s mission is to reflect how language is used in everyday life, making it a valuable resource for capturing the nuances of modern communication.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/cambridge-dictionary-new-additions-skibidi-tradwife-delulu-095e16163ed4f8bdb19893181cdb1a26