New words make new Collins dictionary

ISTANBUL

The latest print edition of the Collins English dictionary contains 50,000 newly-added words, including “selfie,” “onesie” and “photobomb,” BBC News has reported.

The new edition of the dictionary also contains the word “adorkable,” which was voted in by Twitter users from a shortlist of emerging words.

Collins, which began its life in Glasgow in 1819, has been publishing dictionaries in the city from its earliest days. The new edition, which contains 722,000 words and phrases, is the largest single volume dictionary in print.

Collins English Dictionary says “adorkable” is slang for “socially inept or unfashionable in a charming or endearing way” and is a blend of adorable and dork.

Data from Collins’s database, which is compiled in its offices in Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire, reveals that “adorkable” was first used on Twitter in March 2007, peaked in January 2012, and has now settled into a steady pattern of use.

In the introduction to the new dictionary, Mark Forsyth, author of The Etymologicon, said: “There are few pastimes in life as pleasurable and profitable as reading the dictionary. The plot is, of course, rather weak, and the moral of the whole thing slightly elusive; but for my money there isn’t another book that comes close to it.”