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Delulu is the Solulu? Not for dictionaries

September 02, 2025 1:19 am

By codifying internet slang too quickly, traditional dictionaries risk mistaking virality for vitality—and losing their unique authority

Dictionaries, The Cambridge Dictionary has added words born in the chaos of TikTok such as “skibidi,” “delulu” and “tradwife.”

The dictionary just went full skibidi — sorry, grammar snobs, ‘delulu’ is legit now

August 31, 2025 2:25 pm

TikTok slang such as “delulu” and “tradwife” are not the death of English. It is proof that the language is alive, unruly and very much of its time.

Untranslatable words inducted into Oxford English Dictionary highlights fluidity of languages

April 09, 2025 6:57 am

Among the Dictionary's picks are the Tagalog word “gigil”, now a fixture in Philippine English, and other words of Asian origin, such as the Malay expression “alamak”.

Try gigil (pronounced ghee-gill), a Tagalog word that was among the 42 so-called untranslatable terms from various countries and regions — including Southeast Asia, South Africa and Ireland — that were added to the Oxford English Dictionary on Thursday

Overwhelmed by cuteness? There’s a word for that

March 28, 2025 4:58 pm

Borrowed words from other languages have long found their way into English, especially as they spread around the world and come into contact with other cultures.

Discover why brain rot was named Oxford’s Word of the Year for 2024.

What is brain rot?

December 11, 2024 6:50 pm

While the term feels decidedly modern, its roots go way back.

knight kneeling in front of a book, shows power of pen over sword

How 'crowdsourcing' helped create the Oxford English Dictionary 140 years ago

March 21, 2024 5:05 pm

Murderers, Karl Marx's daughter, women with male pen names and writer JRR Tolkien were part of the barrier-breaking volunteer program that helped finish the first Oxford English Dictionary in 1884.

A world full of mistrust

December 10, 2023 6:46 pm

According to common parlance, “authentic” means the somewhat superficial sounding adage, “Be yourself”, except, often enough, who “you” is, remains a confounding mystery.

From ‘rizz’ to ‘goblin mode’ — understanding society through language

December 09, 2023 9:48 am

Annual exercise of selecting a word of the year offers a handy guide to what was topmost on our minds, showing how language changes to reflect our lives

Henry Louis Gates, a decorated scholar of Black history and culture, at home in West Tisbury, Mass. on July 16, 2022. (Cole Barash/The New York Times)

The first 10 words of the African American english dictionary are in

May 25, 2023 10:56 am

In April, Oxford Languages and the Hutchins Center shared 10 entries with The New York Times. Below are selected definitions, variant forms and etymologies.

The Word of the Year goes goblin mode

December 05, 2022 3:43 pm

“Goblin mode” — a slang term referring to “a type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations” — has been named Oxford’s 2022 Word of the Year