Dictionary.com has just announced their latest word and definition additions for winter 2023. The online reference site has added 313 new words, 130 new definitions for existing entries and revised 1,140 definitions. And a lot of these freshly added words reflect the way the Internet has affected our language.
The new additions and updated definitions include:
- Cakeage - The fee charged by a restaurant for serving a cake brought in from outside. It’s modeled after corkage, the term for the fee charged to bring a bottle of wine to a restaurant.
- Cyberflashing - The act of sending unsolicited, unwanted sexually explicit images or videos online.
- Digital nomad - Someone who works remotely while traveling, especially one who has no fixed, permanent address.
- Fan service - Material added to a work of fiction to appeal to its fans
- Hellscape - This word isn’t new, it actually goes back to the late 1890s, but it’s become much more popular in recent years. It means a place or time that’s hopeless or unbearable.
- Microdosing - Taking very small amounts of a psychoactive drug, like cannabis or LSD, to improve mood or enhance cognitive functioning, without hallucinogenic effects.
- Nearlywed - Based on newlywed - someone who recently married - this is a person who lives with someone in a life partnership with a person, possibly engaged with no wedding planned, possibly with no plans to ever marry.
- Petfluencer - A person who gets a large Internet following by posting photos of their pet or a pet who has achieved Internet fame.
- Rage farming - Intentionally provoking political opponents, usually by posting something on social media in order to get an angry response.
- Trauma dumping - Unsolicited, one-sided sharing about a traumatic or intensely negative experiences or emotions in an inappropriate setting or with those who aren’t prepared for it.