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'Hangry', 'man-bun' and 'dabbing' added to Dictionary.com

Alert any alt-right, hangry, man-bun enthusiasts you may know - Dictionary.com has added 300 new ...
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Newstalk

15.01 4 Apr 2017


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'Hangry', &...

'Hangry', 'man-bun' and 'dabbing' added to Dictionary.com

Newstalk
Newstalk

15.01 4 Apr 2017


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Alert any alt-right, hangry, man-bun enthusiasts you may know - Dictionary.com has added 300 new words to its database.

Among the aforementioned slang terms and hyphenations, new entries also include '4/20', 'bitchface' and 'dabbing'.

But what do they all mean?

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Alt-right

'Alt-right' is defined as "a political movement originating on social media and online forums, composed of a segment of conservatives who support extreme right-wing ideologies".

Hangry

Hangry, put simply, is "feeling irritable or irrationally angry as a result of being hungry".

Man-bun

Obviously enough 'man-bun' means "a man’s hair gathered into a bun at the back or top of the head".

Brooklyn Beckham and his man-bun attend the opening of the new Pull&Bear eco-friendly headquarters in Naron, Spain. Image: Jimenez Rodrigo/AlterPhotos/ABACA/ABACA/PA Images

4/20

Those who mark '4/20' celebrate "the twentieth day of the fourth month, or the time 4:20, when referenced as a day or time for cannabis consumption or marijuana culture".

Dabbing

'Dabbing'  is "the act of performing a dance move that involves posing with one’s nose in the crook of a bent elbow at chest level while extending the other arm to the side at or above shoulder level".

via GIPHY

Bitchface

And bitchface? "A facial expression that does not consciously express a particular emotion but that others perceive as scowling, threatening", so you know.

How do words become words?

Dictionary.com lexicographer Jane Solomon told CNN that, despite preconceptions, making the list is serious business. Approving new words is an intense, involved process that comprises different research methods.

One way to pinpoint possible new words is through corpus research, which in this case is essentially taking a lot of different texts and sources and combing through them to look for patterns. That's how words and phrases attached to current events, like 'burkini' and 'Black Lives Matter' rise to prominence.

"We also have lookup data," Solomon said. "We can see what words people have tried to look up on Dictionary.com that haven't led to a definition." Occasionally, users also write to Dictionary.com specifically requesting the definition of a non-existent word. 

"It takes a lot of time and effort and thought, so as a lexicographer we give every word the same amount of respect and attention and care," Solomon said.


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