More than 500 new words were added to the Oxford English Dictionary during 2020. By June 2021 this number grew by 40%, with over 700 words added through the first six months of 2021.
The origins of many of the words, such as staycation and essential worker can be linked to the pandemic. However, some words, such as amazeballs and adulting, have been added to the 2021 dictionary due to cultural use.
Here are some of the most weird and wonderful words that you can now find in the dictionary.
Word/Phrase and Meaning
Staycation
To holiday at home or in one’s country of residence
Cancel culture
The practice or tendency of engaging in mass cancelling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure
Essential worker
A worker who is of crucial importance within a particular field or enterprise
Main character syndrome
The feeling that your life is a film or play and you are the main character in it
Gender pay gap
A difference in pay between men and women
Doomscrolling
Reading the news on social media and expecting it to be bad
Adulting
The action of becoming or acting like an adult
Sapiosexual
Relating to, or characterised by a sexual or romantic attraction to highly intelligent people
Coworking
Working in a building where multiple tenants rent working space and have the use of communal facilities
Amazeballs
Expressing enthusiastic approval: great, excellent, highly impressive; fantastic
Body-shame
To mock, humiliate, or stigmatise (a person) on the basis of supposed faults or imperfections in body shape, size, or appearance.
Chopse
To call (a person) an abusive name; to insult verbally; to shout at angrily.
Volunteercation
A holiday spent doing volunteer work
Astraphobia
A fear of lightning
Dinger
A person’s buttocks
A study by online language learning platform Preply also revealed the languages with the most swear words, by using world dictionaries and surveying bilingual speakers.
With 348 recorded swear words, English has taken the number one spot, beating Spanish with 251 and German with 196.
Language and Number of recorded swear words
English 348
Spanish 251
German 196
French 151
Japanese 150
Bulgarian 129
Russian 123
Swedish 120
Croatian 112
Polish 112
Portuguese 110
Italian 108
Norwegian 94
Filipino 48
Czechia 42
Daniele Saccardi from Preply, said: “Language forms our ability to communicate thoughts and feelings and swear words are a vital part of language that express everything from anger, frustration to even happiness.
“While swearing can be impolite used in the wrong context, it can also increase the effectiveness and persuasiveness of a message.”
The full Cursing Countries Report for 2021 can be found here: https://preply.com/en/blog/most-expressive-languages/
