My BFF just told me “TTYL” is in the dictionary. LMAO.permalink


OUP blogThursday, September 16th, 2010

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for…
New words, senses, and phrases have been added to the
New Oxford American Dictionary!

Now, I’m not going to list every addition, but here’s a sampling I think you’ll all find interesting.

New Words

BFF n. (pl. BFFs) informal a girl’s best friend: my BFF’s boyfriend is cheating on her.

– ORIGIN 1996: from the initial letters of best friend forever.

big media n. [treated as sing. or pl.] the main means of mass communication (i.e., television, radio, and the press), as opposed to blogs or other personal websites.

bromance n. informal a close but nonsexual relationship between two men.
– ORIGIN early 21st cent.: blend of brother and romance.

carbon credit n. a permit that allows a country or organization to produce a certain amount of carbon emissions and that can be traded if the full allowance is not used.

carbon offsetting n. the counteracting of carbon dioxide emissions with an equivalent reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

cloud computing n. the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer.

credit crunch n. a sudden sharp reduction in the availability of money or credit from banks and other lenders: the beleaguered company has become the latest victim of the credit crunch.

defriend v. another term for unfriend.

eggcorn n. a word or phrase that results from a mishearing or misinterpretation of another, an element of the original being substituted for one that sounds very similar or identical (e.g., tow the line instead of toe the line).
– ORIGIN early 21st cent.: with reference to a misinterpretation of acorn.

exit strategy n. a preplanned means of extricating oneself from a situation that is likely to become difficult or unpleasant.

gal pal n. informal a female friend.

green audit n. an assessment of a business in terms of its impact on the environment.

green-collar adj. denoting or relating to employment concerned with products and services designed to improve the quality of the environment: green-collar jobs.
– ORIGIN on the pattern of white-collar and blue-collar.

hashtag n. (on social networking websites such as Twitter) a hash or pound sign (#) used to identify a particular keyword or phrase in a posting.

hater n. a person who greatly dislikes a specified person or thing: a man hater
he’s not a hater of modern music.
informal a negative or critical person: she found it difficult to cope with the haters.

hockey mom n. informal a mother who devotes a great deal of time and effort to supporting her children’s participation in ice hockey.

homeshoring n. the practice of transferring employment that was previously carried out in a company’s office or factory to employees’ homes.
– ORIGIN early 21st cent.: on the pattern of offshoring.

homesourcing n. another term for homeshoring.
– ORIGIN early 21st cent.: on the pattern of outsourcing (see outsource).

hypermiling n. the practice of making adjustments to a vehicle or using driving techniques that will maximize the vehicle’s fuel economy.

Many more at OUP blog.