NEW YORK: The latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary has added 150 new words, from 'selfie' to 'poutine.'
Many of the words and terms relate to digital life and social media - spoiler alert, hashtag and tweep - while others are food-driven, including the Vietnamese staple pho and turducken, a boneless chicken stuffed into a boneless duck stuffed into a boneless turkey.
Merriam-Webster relies on a network of observers who track down word usage. Three or four senior editors make the final selections. E-waste made it into the update. So did e freegan, one who scavenges for free food in store and restaurant trash bins as a way to reduce consumption of resources.
Other new words in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate, along with the lookup database at Merriam-webster.com: Poutine, a French Canadian snack or side dish of french fries covered with brown gravy and cheese curds;
steampunk, a literary genre with dress-up followers that mashes up 19th-century Victorian or Edwardian societies with steam-powered technology;
unfriend, which joins defriend; and hot spot, a place where Wi-Fi is available.
And still more: crowdfunding, big data, baby bump, digital divide, dubstep, fangirl and gamification, the process of adding game-like elements to something to encourage participation.
