Now in Oxford Dictionaries: 'Amazeballs,' 'YOLO,' 'Cray'

Oxford Dictionaries, which focuses on current English, adds words this week
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 14, 2014 3:00 AM CDT
Updated Aug 14, 2014 4:01 AM CDT
'Amazeballs,' 'Side Boob,' 'Vape' in Oxford Dictionaries
What slang lurks within your dictionary?   (AP Photo/The Southeast Missourian, Laura Simon)

Bro, ICYMI, you should totally live-tweet this hyperconnected hot mess of a listicle. It's cray amazeballs. It's so adorbs I want to do an air punch. Don't have any idea what any of this means? Check out the latest edition of Oxford Dictionaries, which—unlike its more sophisticated and stoic cousin, the Oxford English Dictionary—exists to capture the current English words in use today, reports Time. And while most of the words are just plain slang, some of them attest to the particulars of our time, such as "anti-vax," "clickbait," "e-cig," and "Paleo diet."

Britain's Oxford University Press says it's adding the words to its online Oxford Dictionaries to better mirror the latest language trends, reports the AP. "These are words that are common enough that you are likely to encounter them and may have to look up their meanings," the editor says. Tracking roughly 150 million English words found online, in newspapers, and beyond, editors determine which ones appear so frequently that they warrant a definition, then release a new list every few months or so. Some of the other new additions: "hot mess," "side boob," and "YOLO." (Check out what beat out "twerk" to be named Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year in 2013.)

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