April 2009

Report from the Open Dictionary

Dictionary editors keep an eye out for new words, and so do readers. Merriam-Webster's Open Dictionary invites language watchers to pass along new or specialized words (or old words with new meanings) that have not yet made it into a standard print or online dictionary. Decide for yourself if any of these recent contributions will catch on.

Americana (noun) : music derived from or influenced by American roots music
<Full houses chanted along to indie hip-hop and pondered broken hearts and God to the picking of Americana bands. — Jon Pareles, New York Times, March 20, 2009>

kettling (noun) : a tactic used by British police for crowd control in which protesters are confined to a small area for hours
<Baton charges and kettling: police's G20 crowd control tactics under fire — Laville and Duncan Campbell, The Guardian, April 8, 2009>

microblogging (noun) : the production of blog posts with messages that are very short
<The microblogging service Twitter has caught on with everyone from celeb Ashton Kutcher to CEOs. — Heather Green and Robert Hof, Newsweek, March 16, 2009>

spendulous (adjective) : proposing much spending
<Most of the legislators who voted for that spendulous bill hadn't read it. — Laura Ingraham, Fox News, March 19, 2009 >

Have you come across new or specialized words or old words with new meanings? Submit them in the Open Dictionary.


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