Dumbphone. Doomscroll. Dad Bod. Merriam-Webster adds 5,000+ new words to dictionary

If you don’t know the meaning of words like "dumbphone" or "doomscroll," now you can just look them up.

The backstory:

Merriam-Webster announced this week that it is publishing a new edition of its iconic Collegiate Dictionary. It's the first new edition in more than 20 years and only the 12th since 1898, the company said.

It will feature more than 5,000 new words. Among them: cold brew, farm-to-table, rizz, and dad bod.

The Twelfth Edition is now available for pre-order and is scheduled to be released November 18.

Dig deeper:

Fox 5 asked Merriam-Webster President Greg Barlow how they decide which new words to include.

"When a word is used often enough – and it’s usually millions of times over a long enough period of time, we put it in the book," explained Barlow, who added that the words could be used on social media, in books, on the news, or all of the above.

"If [Merriam-Webster editors] see a word over and over again, they’ll start making citations, and eventually over time, it’ll end up in the dictionary."

What they're saying:

If you’re wondering just how many people still use hard-copy dictionaries, apparently, a lot.

"Last year, we sold 1.5 million dictionaries. The book," Barlow said.

He added that the Merriam-Webster website actually has more than 1 billion visitors every year, and that over the last decade, revenue has grown by about 500 percent.

The Source: Merriam-Webster

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