We’re sure you’ll agree that 2024 is turning out to be anything but beige (bland or unremarkable; uninspiring). We’re set to see a record-breaking number of elections this year, with 50 countries due to head to the polls before the year is out. Readers with an interest in UK and/or European politics might remember that we added Brexit to the OED back in 2016. Since then, several related words have proven their longevity, and this month, we’ve added entries for leaver, Brexiter, and Brexiteer (referring to people who supported, campaigned, or voted for the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union), as well as remainer and Remoaner (words referring to those who did the same on the other side, wanting the UK to stay in the EU).
If you find yourself befuddled (bewildered, confused) by current political debates, take refuge in the enjoyability (the fact or quality of being enjoyable; congeniality, pleasurableness) of the following lighter offering. Have you found the third series of Netflix’s glamorous Bridgerton binge-worthy? Taken note of the hunkiness (qualities or characteristics considered to be hunky, especially rugged good looks or sexual attractiveness) of its male stars? Then it may interest you to know that it was not until the early 1900s that the word glamour came to be associated with attractiveness and luxury. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ‘glamour’ was all about enchantment – to cast a glamour over someone meant putting them quite literally under your spell.
The word only became closely associated with visual opulence, physical attraction, and charisma in the later twentieth century, perhaps as a result of the rise of cinema and the Golden Age of Hollywood. In the 1970s, the advent of glam rock – the style of rock music where performers such as David Bowie made flamboyant clothes and make-up a feature of their onstage performances and personas – sealed this linguistic shift. Other associated additions include glam rocker, visual kei (the glam rock movement or aesthetic in Japanese rock music), glam up (to make oneself more glamorous), glamour puss (a glamorous or attractive person), glamazon (a tall, glamorous, and powerful woman), and glampsite – the most luxurious location to get your fix of the great outdoors.
Speaking of the great outdoors, wildscape now has its own entry. Meaning ‘an area within which plants and animals have been able to thrive with minimal or no human presence’, it conjures up more peaceful scenes than some of our other environment-related additions. Five-alarm (designating a particularly large, fierce, destructive fire, especially one requiring a large-scale response from firefighters) and megadrought (a drought lasting many years, great both in extent and severity) echo other alarming language used in the world of meteorology, such as weather bomb (added in 2015) and blood rain (added in 2012).
Moving back indoors and online, we’ve added a number of technology related terms, perhaps most notably artificial general intelligence, or AGI for short. This is a form of AI in which a machine or computer program can (hypothetically) simulate behaviour as intelligent as, or more intelligent than, that of a human being. When it comes to human activity on the internet, we’ve added freecycle (to give away an unwanted possession, especially when agreed or arranged via an online network) and edgelord (a person who affects a provocative or extreme persona, especially online). Snackable, meanwhile, can be used to describe a video or other item of digital content, especially on social media, that is designed for brief and easy consumption, or to refer to food intended as a snack IRL (‘in real life’ – which is not a new addition, but is an enjoyable acronym).
Speaking of snacks, babyccino (a frothy hot milk drink for children, intended to resemble a cappuccino) and the regrettable shrinkflation (a reduction in the size or weight of products with no corresponding reduction in price, a phenomenon first described this way in 2008) can now be found in the OED. Fewer tasty treats for more money? How regrettable. One last food-related anecdote before we sign off – the verb beef has a new first sense. Evidence dating from the early 1800s shows the phrase to cry beef had the meaning ‘to raise the alarm or make an outcry against a person, especially to cry for help to arrest an escaping thief’. This seems to be a precursor to the more familiar current senses of beef (and indeed beefing) relating to arguments, fights, and feuds.
Sadly, we can’t squeeze another word in edgeways (to contribute something to a conversation, usually with the implication that this is difficult because the other speakers are talking incessantly). T minus three months until the next quarterly update… Join us then.
Learn More
For more insight into the surprising joint linguistic origins of the words glamour and grammar, see this blog post. These new word notes include discussion of the word coruscating (recommended reading), and this piece focuses on updates around Indo-European words. A selection of highlights from the list of new words added, new senses added, and additions to unrevised entries are available too.
