And this year, the Cambridge Dictionary has gone big with its additions. All together, it contributed more than 6,000 new words! This latest change is just another one of many as the evolution of language continues to today with how it is used in modern culture and communication. Among the newly added words is skibidi, a slang term that went viral on social media such as TikTok and YouTube.
Colin McIntosh is the lexical program manager at Cambridge Dictionary. He elaborated on a mention in the dictionary that served as an impetus for only including words with obvious staying power. “We only add words where we think they’ll have staying power,” McIntosh stated. The “skibidi” craze started from a surrealistic, animated YouTube series. It has a versatility where it’s previously meant cool or bad now it injects irony or sarcasm into the common vernacular, used more as a joke than anything else.
Along with “skibidi,” the dictionary has welcomed words of the modern age, like “mouse jiggler.” This blanket term covers any device or program that mimics human digital behavior on a computer. They allow users to create the appearance of being attentive, when in fact they’re not. The pandemic accelerated a global shift to remote work. As work culture has changed, accompanying it has been the creation of terms reflecting this change.
The Cambridge Dictionary, the world’s largest online dictionary, adds new words and senses annually. This yearly update gives a glimpse into how our language reflects changing social norms and societal trends. McIntosh noted, “Internet culture is changing the English language and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the dictionary.” From my point of view, social media accelerates the spread of new slang and vernacular. This trend only further underscores its truly central role in the evolution of language today.
The new words on offer are a reminder that language is continually evolving and adapting. They show readers how cultural events shape ways of knowing and speaking. As humans keep inventing and redefining what it means to be human, dictionaries like Cambridge’s will do their best to record those changes for generations to come.
