OAKLAND, Calif., May 6, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Today
Dictionary.com, the leading online and mobile resource for
everything word related, announces the latest additions to its
dictionary, with a focus on new and updated technology terms, among
hundreds of other new words and thousands of revised definitions to
reflect the ever-evolving English language.
Ripped straight from national news headlines, the words
dox, cybercrime, and revenge
porn have all been added to Dictionary.com in this update.
The search volume of these words and others, including
blackhat, dark web, and
hyperlocal, all indicate increasing
interest in technological threats and trends. New
devices, especially smartwatches, are generating an
entire lexicon of new terms like glanceable and new
definitions for terms like parallax, gesture,
and haptics.
"Many of these new words show that the line continues to blur
between our lives online and our vernacular, with personal and
enterprise security top of mind for consumers, as shown by their
searches," said Michele Turner, CEO
of Dictionary.com. "One of our favorite recent additions is a
concept very familiar to many of us these days:
anecdata is anecdotal evidence based on personal
observations but presented as fact."
Several other words also make their Dictionary.com debut,
including some that may have autocorrect working
overtime, such as astroturfing,
brogrammer, and mRDC, and
other existing terms that have acquired new meanings, including
basic, ship, and swat.
Another trend gleaned from Dictionary.com data was a rise in
searches for gender-related words, including agender,
bigender, and gender-fluid. As people
encounter new terms to describe gender identity, they turn to
Dictionary.com for clarity, making these words an important
addition to the update.
Dictionary.com uses a number of tools to determine which words
are widely used and should earn a place in the online dictionary.
Lexicographers review and discover new words in everything from
academic journals, pop-culture sources, and user suggestions, while
vetting new candidates in a corpus of contemporary language use
that contains more than 19 billion words. Dictionary.com stands
apart from other dictionaries with its access to billions of data
points in search lookups, and its lexicographers analyze this
search data to better understand interest and demand.
A selection of the recently added words with brief definitions
can be found below. Full dictionary entries for the new words can
be found on Dictionary.com.
agender: relating to a person who does not have a
specific gender identity or recognizable gender expression.
anecdata: anecdotal evidence based on personal
observations or opinions, random investigations, etc., but
presented as fact.
astroturfing: the deceptive tactic of simulating
grassroots support for a product or cause undertaken by people or
organizations with an interest in shaping public opinion.
basic: characterized by predictable or unoriginal style,
interests, or behavior.
bigender: relating to a person who has two gender
identities or some combination of both.
blackhat: a hacker who violates the security of a system
for personal profit or for the gratification of causing damage.
brogrammer: a male computer programmer who is
characterized as a bro.
crash blossom: an ambiguously worded headline whose
meaning can be interpreted in the wrong way, as "Missing Woman
Remains Found."
cybercrime: criminal activity or a crime that involves
the Internet, a computer system, or computer technology.
dark web: the portion of the Internet that is
intentionally hidden from search engines, uses masked IP addresses,
and is accessible only with a special web browser.
dox: to publish the private personal information of
(another person) without the consent of that individual.
esports: competitive tournaments of video games.
gender-fluid: relating to a person whose gender identity
or gender expression is not fixed and shifts over time or depending
on the situation.
glanceable: relating to information on an electronic
screen that can be understood quickly or at a glance.
gesture: a particular movement of the fingers or hand
over a screen, used to control or interact with a digital
device.
haptics: the study or use of tactile sensations and the
sense of touch as a method of interacting with computers and
electronic devices.
hyperlocal: focused on a very small geographical
community, as a neighborhood.
microaggression: a subtle but offensive comment or action
directed at a minority or other nondominant group that is often
unintentional or unconsciously reinforces a stereotype.
mRDC: mobile remote deposit capture: a method of
depositing a check by using a mobile device to scan an image of it
and transmit the image to a bank.
parallax: a 3-D effect observed when images and other
elements in the foreground of a screen move at a different rate
than those in the background.
revenge porn: sexually suggestive images of someone,
typically a former romantic partner, that are posted online without
the person's consent.
ship: to take an interest in a romantic relationship
between fictional characters or famous people.
smartwatch: a computing device that resembles a
wristwatch and is attached to a band worn around the wrist.
swat: (especially among online video gamers) to cause a
SWAT team to be deployed on an unsuspecting victim by falsifying a
threat, often as a punishment or retaliation.
About Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com, an IAC (NASDAQ: IACI) company, is the world's
leading, definitive online and mobile resource for everything word
related. We provide tens of millions of global monthly users with
reliable access to millions of definitions, synonyms, audio
pronunciations, example sentences, translations and spelling help
through our services at Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and
Reference.com. Our leading mobile applications for reference
and education have been downloaded more than 90 million times.
To view the original version on PR Newswire,
visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/astroturfing-bigender-glanceable-hyperlocal--more-new-words-added-to-the-dictionary-300077638.html
SOURCE Dictionary.com