Internet slang terms including "skibidi", "tradwife" and "delulu" have been added to the Cambridge Dictionary alongside more than 6,000 other new words this year.
Remote working also introduced terms like "mouse jiggler", while climate change concerns brought "forever chemical" into official recognition.
The gibberish word "skibidi" joined the world’s largest online dictionary in the past 12 months after becoming known through a viral YouTube animated series called "skibidi toilet".
Cambridge Dictionary defines it as "a word that can have different meanings such as 'cool' or 'bad', or can be used with no real meaning as a joke", with the usage example: "What the skibidi are you doing?"
The term reached mainstream attention after Kim Kardashian posted an Instagram video in October showing a necklace her daughter had given her as a birthday present, engraved with "skibidi toilet".
"Tradwife", short for traditional wife, describes a married woman who stays at home doing cooking, cleaning, and looking after children. The new dictionary definition also says a “tradwife” is “especially one who posts on social media”.
"Delulu" represents a playful abbreviation of "delusional", defined as "believing things that are not real or true, usually because you choose to".
"Internet culture is changing the English language and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the dictionary," said Colin McIntosh, lexical programme manager at Cambridge Dictionary. "It's not every day you get to see words like 'skibidi' and 'delulu' make their way into the Cambridge Dictionary."
"We only add words where we think they'll have staying power," McIntosh added.
The dictionary uses the Cambridge English Corpus, a database of more than two billion words of written and spoken English, to observe how new words are used by different people. This system tracks how often and in what contexts terms appear before granting official recognition.
The pandemic's remote working legacy contributed "mouse jiggler" to the dictionary - a device or software used to simulate computer activity when not actually working.
"Broligarchy" merged "bro" and "oligarchy" to describe "a small group of men, especially men owning or involved in a technology business, who are extremely rich and powerful, and who have or want political influence". It was used to describe tech leaders Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg attending Donald Trump’s inauguration.
New workplace relationship terms "work wife" and "work spouse" have also acknowledged professional partnerships where colleagues develop supportive, trust-based relationships, Cambridge Dictionary said.
Sources used: "PA Media" Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
