The An Affair – Young Stepmother (2019)Oxford English Dictionary can never let slang just be slang. In the past, it's tried to bond with its fellow kids with words such as hot mess, YOLO, and manspreadingmuch to all of our eye-rolling.
The OED's latest update to the dictionary is the addition of the definition of woke, which TIMEdefines as a term "embraced by the Black Lives Matter movement."
If you didn't already understand the term from your time scrolling through Twitter, the OED defines it as:
woke, adjective: Originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice; frequently in stay woke.
Katherine Martin, head of Oxford's U.S. dictionaries, explains that in the 1920s, the term simply meant to "stay awake." For example, there was an event held in Harlem with ran from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. called the "Stay Woke Ball." However, in the 1960s, people began using "woke" to signal a more figurative sense of the word "awakened," referring to those who are aware or well-informed.
Other terms in this round of additions include thing(as in "Is this even a thing?"), and swimmer(ahem, sperm).
Here's the full list of other additions:
Boston marriage (noun): used euphemistically to refer to the cohabitation of two women, esp. in a romantic relationship or intimate friendship
bug chaser (noun):a person who studies or collects insects or other bugs; an entomologist. Often somewhat depreciative.
come-to-Jesus (adjective):of a meeting, discussion, encounter, etc.: that results or is intended to result in a significant shift in the current way of thinking about or doing something.
post-truth (adjective): relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping political debate or public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
son of a bachelor (noun): used as a term of abuse or contempt.
swimmer (noun):a sperm.
thing (noun):A genuine or established phenomenon or practice. Typically somewhat depreciative, often in questions conveying surprise or incredulity.
unclick (verb):on a computerized form or menu: to deselect
uptalk (verb):to utter declarative statements with a rising intonation at the end (a speech pattern more typically associated with questions).
If you didn't already know these terms, crack open your dictionary (do people even own dictionaries anymore?) and get to studying!
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