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Definition of annotate

intransitive verb

transitive verb

Examples of annotate in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'annotate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Latin annotatus , past participle of annotare , from ad- + notare to mark — more at note

1693, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Dictionary Entries Near annotate

Cite this entry.

“Annotate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/annotate. Accessed 16 Feb. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of annotate, legal definition, legal definition of annotate, more from merriam-webster on annotate.

Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for annotate

Nglish: Translation of annotate for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of annotate for Arabic Speakers

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Definition of 'annotation'

IPA Pronunciation Guide

annotation in British English

Annotation in american english, examples of 'annotation' in a sentence annotation, trends of annotation.

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Related terms of annotation

  • gene annotation
  • genome annotation
  • functional annotation

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Definition of annotate verb from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

  • The drawings were all clearly annotated.
  • The text was annotated with her own comments.

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Look up any word in the dictionary offline, anytime, anywhere with the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.

annotation definition vocabulary

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an·no·ta·tion

An•no•ta•tion.

  • acknowledgment
  • expanding upon
  • anniversary day
  • Anniversary week
  • anno Domini
  • anno Hebraico
  • anno Hegirae
  • anno urbis conditae
  • annomination
  • Annona cherimola
  • Annona diversifolia
  • Annona glabra
  • Annona muricata
  • Annona reticulata
  • Annona squamosa
  • annotated print
  • Annotationist
  • announcement
  • Annual epact
  • annual fern
  • annual general meeting
  • annual parallax
  • annual percentage rate
  • ANNotated Ada
  • Annotated Case Report Form
  • annotated diagram
  • annotated DNA sequence
  • Annotated Electrocardiogram
  • Annotated Error Guide
  • annotated genome sequence
  • annotated genomic sequence
  • Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics
  • Annotated Instructor's Edition
  • Annotated Labeled Transition System
  • Annotated Multiple Choice Questions
  • Annotated Outline
  • annotated photograph
  • Annotated Points-to Escape
  • Annotated Pratchett File
  • Annotated Reference Manual
  • Annotated Revised Code of Washington
  • Annotated Web Link
  • Annotated XML Schema
  • Annotation Creation for Your Media
  • Annotation DataSet Record
  • Annotation Operator Graph
  • annotation overprint
  • Annotation Processing Tool
  • annotation text
  • Annotation, Interpretation and Management of Mutations
  • Annotations
  • Annotations of an Autopsy
  • Annotations-in-Context
  • announce (something) to
  • announce (something) to (someone or something)
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Learning Center

Annotating Texts

What is annotation.

Annotation can be:

  • A systematic summary of the text that you create within the document
  • A key tool for close reading that helps you uncover patterns, notice important words, and identify main points
  • An active learning strategy that improves comprehension and retention of information

Why annotate?

  • Isolate and organize important material
  • Identify key concepts
  • Monitor your learning as you read
  • Make exam prep effective and streamlined
  • Can be more efficient than creating a separate set of reading notes

How do you annotate?

Summarize key points in your own words .

  • Use headers and words in bold to guide you
  • Look for main ideas, arguments, and points of evidence
  • Notice how the text organizes itself. Chronological order? Idea trees? Etc.

Circle key concepts and phrases

  • What words would it be helpful to look-up at the end?
  • What terms show up in lecture? When are different words used for similar concepts? Why?

Write brief comments and questions in the margins

  • Be as specific or broad as you would like—use these questions to activate your thinking about the content
  • See our handout on reading comprehension tips for some examples

Use abbreviations and symbols

  • Try ? when you have a question or something you need to explore further
  • Try ! When something is interesting, a connection, or otherwise worthy of note
  • Try * For anything that you might use as an example or evidence when you use this information.
  • Ask yourself what other system of symbols would make sense to you.

Highlight/underline

  • Highlight or underline, but mindfully. Check out our resource on strategic highlighting for tips on when and how to highlight.

Use comment and highlight features built into pdfs, online/digital textbooks, or other apps and browser add-ons

  • Are you using a pdf? Explore its highlight, edit, and comment functions to support your annotations
  • Some browsers have add-ons or extensions that allow you to annotate web pages or web-based documents
  • Does your digital or online textbook come with an annotation feature?
  • Can your digital text be imported into a note-taking tool like OneNote, EverNote, or Google Keep? If so, you might be able to annotate texts in those apps

What are the most important takeaways?

  • Annotation is about increasing your engagement with a text
  • Increased engagement, where you think about and process the material then expand on your learning, is how you achieve mastery in a subject
  • As you annotate a text, ask yourself: how would I explain this to a friend?
  • Put things in your own words and draw connections to what you know and wonder

The table below demonstrates this process using a geography textbook excerpt (Press 2004):

A chart featuring a passage from a text in the left column and then columns that illustrate annotations that include too much writing, not enough writing, and a good balance of writing.

A common concern about annotating texts: It takes time!

Yes, it can, but that time isn’t lost—it’s invested.

Spending the time to annotate on the front end does two important things:

  • It saves you time later when you’re studying. Your annotated notes will help speed up exam prep, because you can review critical concepts quickly and efficiently.
  • It increases the likelihood that you will retain the information after the course is completed. This is especially important when you are supplying the building blocks of your mind and future career.

One last tip: Try separating the reading and annotating processes! Quickly read through a section of the text first, then go back and annotate.

Works consulted:

Nist, S., & Holschuh, J. (2000). Active learning: strategies for college success. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 202-218.

Simpson, M., & Nist, S. (1990). Textbook annotation: An effective and efficient study strategy for college students. Journal of Reading, 34: 122-129.

Press, F. (2004). Understanding earth (4th ed). New York: W.H. Freeman. 208-210.

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Understanding & Interacting with a Text

Annotations, definition and purpose.

annotation definition vocabulary

Annotating literally means taking notes within the text as you read.  As you annotate, you may combine a number of reading strategies—predicting, questioning, dealing with patterns and main ideas, analyzing information—as you physically respond to a text by recording your thoughts.  Annotating may occur on a first or second reading of the text, depending on the text’s difficulty or length. You may annotate in different formats, either in the margins of the text or in a separate notepad or document. The main thing to remember is that annotation is at the core of active reading. By reading carefully and pausing to reflect upon, mark up, and add notes to a text as you read, you can greatly improve your understanding of that text.

Think of annotating a text in terms of having a conversation with the author in real time. You wouldn’t sit passively while the author talked at you. You wouldn’t be able to get clarification or ask questions.  Your thought processes would probably close down and you would not engage in thinking about larger meanings related to the topic. Conversation works best when people are active participants. Annotation is a form of active involvement with a text.

Reasons to Annotate

There are a number of reasons to annotate a text:

  • Annotation ultimately saves reading time. While it may take more time up front as you read, annotating while you read can help you avoid having to re-read passages in order to get the meaning. That’s because…
  • Annotation improves understanding. By pausing to reflect as you read, annotating a text helps you figure out if you’re understanding what you’re reading. If not, you can immediately re-read or seek additional information to improve your understanding. This is called “monitoring comprehension.”
  • Annotation increases your odds of remembering what you’ve read, because you write those annotations in your own words, making the information your own. You also leave behind a set of notes that can help you find key information the next time you need to refer to that text.
  • Annotation provides a record of your deeper questions and thoughts as you read, insights related to analyzing, interpreting, and going beyond the text into related issues.  Annotations such as these will be useful when you’re asked to respond to a text through reacting, applying, analyzing, and synthesizing, since these types of annotations record your own thoughts.  Much academic work in college is intended to get you to offer your own, informed thoughts (as opposed to simple recall and regurgitation of information); annotating a text helps you capture key personal, analytical insights as you read.

The following video offers a brief, clear example of annotating a text.

What to Annotate

You’ll find that you’re annotating differently in different texts, depending on your background knowledge of the topic, your own ease with reading the text, and the type of text, among other variables.  There’s no single formula for annotating a text.  Instead, there are different types of annotations that you may make, depending on the particular text.

  • Mark the thesis or main idea sentence, if there is one in the text.  Or note the implied main idea.  In either case, phrase that main idea in your own words.
  • Mark places that seem important, interesting, and/or confusing.
  • Note your agreement or disagreement with an idea in the text.
  • Link a concept in the text to your own experience.
  • Write a reminder to look up something – an unknown word, a difficult concept, or a related idea that occurred to you.
  • Record questions you have about what you are reading. These questions generally fall into two different categories, to clarify meaning and to evaluate what you’ve read.
  • Note any biases unstated assumptions (your own included).
  • Paraphrase a difficult passage by putting it into your own words.
  • Summarize a lengthy section of a text to extract the main ideas–again in your own words.
  • Note important transition words that show a shift in thought; transitions show how the author is linking ideas.  This is especially important if you’re reading and annotating a text intended to persuade the reader to a particular point of view, as it allows you to clarify and evaluate the author’s line of reasoning.
  • Note repeated words or phrases; it’s likely that such emphasis relates to a key concept or main idea.
  • Note the writer’s tone—straightforward, sarcastic, sincere, witty—and how it influences the ideas presented.
  • Note idea linkages between this text and another text.
  • Note idea linkages between this text and key concepts or theories of a discipline. For example, does the author offer examples relating to theories of motivation that you’re studying in a psychology class?
  • And more…again, annotations vary according to the text and your background in the text’s topic.

View the following video, which reviews reading strategies for approximately the first three minutes and then moves into a comprehensive discussion of the types of things to annotate in non-fiction texts.

How to Annotate

Make sure to annotate through writing.  Do not – do not –  simply highlight or underline existing words in the text.  While your annotations may start with a few underlined words or sentences, you should always complete your thoughts through a written annotation that identifies why you underlined those words (e.g., key ideas, your own reaction to something, etc.). The pitfall of highlighting is that readers tend to do it too much, and then have to go back to the original text and re-read most of it.  By writing annotations in your own words, you’ve already moved to a higher level in your conversation with the text.

If you don’t want to write in a margin of a book or article, use sticky notes for your annotations.  If the text is in electronic form, then the format itself may have built-in annotation tools, or write in a Word document which allows you to paste sentences and passages that you want to annotate.

You may also want to create your own system of symbols to mark certain things such as main idea (*), linkage to ideas in another text (+), confusing information that needs to be researched further (!), or similar idea (=). The symbols and marks should make sense to you, and you should apply them consistently from text to text, so that they become an easy shorthand for annotation. However, annotations should not consist of symbols only; you need to include words to remember why you marked the text in that particular place.

Above all, be selective about what to mark; if you end up annotating most of a page or even most of a paragraph, nothing will stand out, and you will have defeated the purpose of annotating.

Here’s one brief example of annotation:

Sample Annotation

What follows is a sample annotation of the first few paragraphs of an article from CNN, “One quarter of giant panda habitat lost in Sichuan quake,” July 29, 2009. Sample annotations are in color. 

“The earthquake in Sichuan, southwestern China, last May left around 69,000 people dead and 15 million people displaced. Now ecologists have assessed the earthquake’s impact on biodiversity look this word up and the habitat for some of the last existing wild giant pandas.

According to the report published in “Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment,” 23 percent of the pandas’ habitat in the study area was destroyed, and fragmentation of the remaining habitat could hinder panda reproduction. How was this data gathered? Do we know that fragmentation will hinder panda reproduction?  

The Sichuan region is designated as a global hotspot for biodiversity, according to Conservation International. Home to more than 12,000 species of plants and 1.122 species of vertebrates, the area includes more than half of the habitat for the Earth’s wild giant panda population, said study author Weihua Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.” So can we assume that having so much of the pandas/ habitat destroyed will impact other species here?

Link to two additional examples of what and how to annotate

  • Invention: Annotating a Text from Hunter College, included as a link in Maricopa Community College’s Reading 100 open educational resource. There’s a very clearly-annotated sample text at the end of this handout.
  • Ethnic Varieties by Walt Wolfram, included as a link in Let’s Get Writing.

Summary: Annotation = Making Connections

The video below offers a review of reading concepts in the first part, focused on the concept of reading as connecting with a text.  From approximately mid-way to the end, the video offers a good extended example and discussion of annotating a text.

Note: if you want to try annotating an article and find the one in the video difficult to read, you may want to practice on a similar article about the same topic, “ Tinker V. Des Moines Independent Community School District: Kelly Shackelford on Symbolic Speech ” on the blog of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read the paragraphs from “ Cultural Relativism ” that deal with the sociological perspective. Annotate the paragraphs with insights, questions, and thoughts that occur to you as you read.

  • Annotations, includes material adapted from Excelsior College Online Reading Lab, Let's Get Writing, UMRhetLab, Reading 100, and Basic Reading and Writing; attributions below. Authored by : Susan Oaks. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
  • Annotating: Creating an Annotation System. Provided by : Excelsior College. Located at : https://owl.excelsior.edu/orc/what-to-do-while-reading/annotating/annotating-creating-an-annotation-system/ . Project : Excelsior College Online Reading lab. License : CC BY: Attribution
  • Chapter 1 - Critical Reading. Authored by : Elizabeth Browning. Provided by : Virginia Western Community College. Located at : https://vwcceng111.pressbooks.com/chapter/chapter-1-critical-reading/#whileyouread . Project : Let's Get Writing. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
  • Strategies for Active Reading. Authored by : Guy Krueger.. Provided by : University of Mississippi. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/olemiss-writing100/chapter/strategies-for-active-reading/ . Project : UMRhetLab. License : CC BY: Attribution
  • Annotating a Text (from Hunter College). Provided by : Maricopa Community College. Located at : https://learn.maricopa.edu/courses/904536/files/32965647?module_item_id=7199522 . Project : Reading 100. License : CC BY: Attribution
  • Summary Skills. Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-basicreadingwriting/chapter/outcome-summary-skills/ . Project : Basic Reading and Writing. License : CC BY: Attribution
  • image of open book with colored tabs and colored pencils. Authored by : Luisella Planeta . Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/books-pencils-pens-map-dictionary-3826148/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
  • video Textbook Reading Strategies - Annotate the Text. Authored by : DistanceLearningKCC. Provided by : Kirkwood Community College. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE1ot8KWJrk . License : Other . License Terms : YouTube video
  • video Annotating Non-Fiction Texts. Authored by : Arri Weeks. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrvNIVF9EbI . License : Other . License Terms : YouTube video
  • video Making Connections During Reading. Provided by : WarnerJordanEducation. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF54mvmFkxg . License : Other . License Terms : YouTube video

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From ‘woke’ to ‘queerbait’: Dictionary.com adds 300 new words

W ell, folx , you’re going to want to see the new entries Dictionary.com has added to describe our collective hellscape . Deadass . And if you didn’t understand that, don’t worry — that’s what these new definitions are for.

Dictionary.com — the popular online dictionary that’s been running since 1995 — announced Tuesday that it added more than 1,500 new, updated, and revised words to its catalog. New entries include modern-day slang terms, like petfluencer, a person who gains a large following on social media by posting entertaining images or videos of their cat, dog, or other pet.

Other updates and revisions include the adjustment of the phrase anti-Semitism to antisemitism , to reflect the widely preferred form of the word . The word’s definition has not changed; it’s still described by the site as “discrimination against or prejudice or hostility toward Jews.”

In total, Dictionary.com announced there were:

  • 313 new entries
  • 130 new definitions for existing entries
  • 1,140 revised definitions

Updating and adding to dictionaries is a common practice across the board. John Kelly, Dictionary.com ’s senior director of editorial, said the site’s regular updates are meant to reflect how times change and language evolves.

“The sheer range and volume of vocabulary captured in our latest update to Dictionary.com reflects a shared feeling that change today is happening faster and more than ever before,” Kelly said. “Our team of lexicographers is documenting and contextualizing that unstoppable swirl of the English language.”

Dictionary.com says it uses a set of criteria to decide what words make the cut. Words are added when they’re:

  • used by a lot of people
  • used by those people in largely the same way
  • likely to stick around
  • are useful for a general audience

New entries added Tuesday include:

  • Bedwetting: exhibition of emotional overreaction, as anxiety or alarm, to events, especially major decisions or outcomes
  • Deadass: genuinely, sincerely, or truly; in fact
  • Digital nomad: a person who works remotely while traveling for leisure, especially when having no fixed, permanent address
  • Fan service: material added to a work of fiction for the perceived or actual purpose of appealing to the audience, used especially of material that is risque or sexual in nature
  • Folx: people; a variant spelling of folks (spelled with x not only as shorthand for the /ks/ sound, but also in parallel with other gender-inclusive spellings, like Latinx)
  • Forever chemicals: long-lasting chemicals, including PFAS and hydrofluorocarbons, used in the manufacture of common household items such as refrigerators, nonstick cookware, and flame-resistant furniture, that remain in the environment because they break down very slowly, and subsequently accumulate within animals and people
  • Hellscape: a place or time that is hopeless, unbearable, or irredeemable
  • Microdosing: the practice of taking or administering very small amounts of a psychoactive drug, such as cannabis, LSD, or psilocybin, to improve mood or enhance cognitive functioning, without hallucinogenic or other disorienting effects
  • Multisexual: noting or relating to a person who is sexually or romantically attracted to people of more than one gender, used especially as an inclusive term to describe similar, related sexual orientations such as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, etc.
  • Nearlywed: a person who lives with another in a life partnership, sometimes engaged with no planned wedding date, sometimes with no intention of ever marrying
  • Pinkwashing: an instance or practice of acknowledging and promoting the civil liberties of the LGBTQ+ community, but superficially, as a ploy to divert attention from allegiances and activities that are in fact hostile to such liberties
  • Queerbaiting: a marketing technique involving intentional homoeroticism or suggestions of LGBTQ+ themes intended to draw in an LGBTQ+ audience, without explicit inclusion of openly LGBTQ+ relationships, characters, or people
  • Rage farming: the tactic of intentionally provoking political opponents, typically by posting inflammatory content on social media, in order to elicit angry responses and thus high engagement or widespread exposure for the original poster
  • Self-coup: a coup d’état performed by the current, legitimate government or a duly elected head of state to retain or extend control over government, through an additional term, an extension of term, an expansion of executive power, the dismantling of other government branches, or the declaration that an election won by an opponent is illegitimate
  • Talmbout: a phonetic spelling representing an African American Vernacular English pronunciation of talking about, used especially online
  • Trauma dumping: unsolicited, one-sided sharing of traumatic or intensely negative experiences or emotions in an inappropriate setting or with people who are unprepared for the interaction
  • Woke: of or relating to a liberal progressive orthodoxy, especially promoting inclusive policies or ideologies that welcome or embrace ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities
  • WOC: abbreviation . woman of color: a woman of color; a nonwhite woman

©2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Meaning of annotated in English

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  • The book's annotated bibliography fills 45 pages .
  • You are allowed to bring annotated copies of the novel you have been studying into the exam .
  • Any attached documentation should be annotated with explanatory notes for clarification .
  • Students arrive at the lecture equipped with printed notes : all they have to do is to annotate these printouts .
  • He annotates and indexes a page in his notebook .
  • Typically I use this program to annotate a document with my own structured content .
  • Annotated data has facilitated recent advances in part of speech tagging , parsing , and other language processing issues .
  • dog whistle

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'Girl dinner,' 'bussin' and 'the ick': More than 300 new entries added to Dictionary.com

annotation definition vocabulary

It may have started off as a video that exploded into a meme, but "girl dinner" is now one of more than 300 words added to Dictionary.com's lexicon in 2024.

On Tuesday, Dictionary.com announced it was adding 327 new entries, 173 new definitions for existing entries and 1,228 revised definitions to the dictionary. The newly-added terms are broad, stemming from major topics of the day and range from economics and climate to health and wellness and slang.

“The intersection of language, learning, and culture is boundless, and we recognize that words have the power to shape thoughts, bridge gaps, and reflect our ever-evolving society,” John Kelly, vice president of editorial at Dictionary.com said in a release. “Our semi-annual New Words announcement is meant to support a greater understanding of where language is, where it might go next—and why the constantly expanding universe of words matters for our everyday lives.”

Here's a look at just some of the hundreds of words recently added to Dictionary.com, as well as their definitions and the origin behind the term. The full list of new words can be found on Dictionary.com .

Girl dinner

  • Often attractively presented collection of snacks that involve little preparation, such as small quantities of cold cuts, cheese, fruit, cherry tomatoes, etc., deemed sufficient to constitute a meal for one.
  • Girl dinner went viral after TikTok user Olivia Maher used the term in a video in May 2023, possibly shortening an earlier version, hot girl dinner, that often included decadent or youth-maintaining food.
  • Mediocre, unimpressive, or disappointing.
  • Great; wonderful; amazing.
  • Popular among Gen Z, this term originates in African American culture and is likely based on various senses of bust meaning “to explode,” “to do well,” or “to enjoy.”
  • A sudden feeling of disgust or dislike, often in response to the actions of another person.
  • This phrase, popular in dating culture and on TikTok, is thought to trace back to the late 1990s TV show Ally McBeal. The ick is also used as an informal term for an illness, especially a cold or flu.
  • A ploy or technique that bypasses traditional methods or rules in order to improve oneself or one’s success.
  • This more recent sense of the term is an extension of its use in the context of video games, in which it refers to a hidden command, code, etc., used to gain an advantage, such as by advancing levels or enhancing a character’s strengths.

Range anxiety

  • The apprehension or fear that an electric vehicle’s battery will run out of power beforereaching one’s intended destination or a charging station.

Skiplagging

  • The practice of purchasing an air ticket for a flight with a layover at one’s true destination, getting off at the layover point, and skipping the last leg of the flight: a workaround to avoid paying a higher fare for a direct flight to one’s destination.
  • The verb form is skiplag, a compound of skip, “to jump or pass over,” and lag, “an instance of staying behind."

Bed rotting

  • The practice of spending many hours in bed during the day, often with snacks or an electronic device, as a voluntary retreat from activity or stress.
  • Despite the negative connotation of rotting, many use this term in a positive way to refer to what they consider a form of self-care. The verb form is bed rot.

Pretty privilege

  • An unearned and mostly unacknowledged societal advantage that a person has by fitting into the beauty standards of their culture.
  • Pretty privilege uses the same construction as white privilege and similar terms.
  • An aesthetic or style featuring playful pink outfits, accessories, decor, etc., celebrating and modeled on the wardrobe of the Barbie doll.
  • We’re likely still fully within the trend of using -core to form names for niche aesthetics, such as cottagecore and normcore.

Slow fashion

  • A movement among clothing producers and consumers that emphasizes eco-friendly, well-made clothing, maintenance and repair of garments to extend their lifespan, and a general reduction of one’s consumption of new clothing items.
  • This term is used in contrast with fast fashion. The fast/slow framing is perhaps best known for its use in the distinction between fast food and slow food, but it will likely continue to be applied in other contexts where there is interest in sustainable practices.

Bechdel test

  • A test of gender stereotyping and inequality in fiction, having a number of variations and used especially with movies, based on whether the work includes at least two fairly important female characters who talk to each other about something besides a man.
  • The first recorded uses of the term Bechdel test come from between 2005 and 2010, but the concept was introduced by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in a 1985 comic strip.

Tommy John surgery

  • An operation to repair a torn ligament on the inner side of the elbow by replacing it with a tendon from elsewhere in the body or from a donor.
  • Common among baseball players, the surgery gets its name from pitcher Tommy John, on whom the procedure was first performed in 1974. It is formally called ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction.
  • A substance containing dietary fiber that stimulates the growth or activity of beneficial bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract.

Greedflation

  • A rise in prices, rents, or the like, that is not due to market pressure or any other factor organic to the economy, but is caused by corporate executives or boards of directors, property owners, etc., solely to increase profits that are already healthy or excessive.
  • The verb form is greedflate. Other recently added inflation words include shrinkflation and shadow inflation.

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Gen z slang invades dictionary.com for another year: ‘bed rotting,’ ‘girl dinner,’ ‘boobne’ and more.

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Perhaps someone should throw the book at Dictionary.com .

The word-defining platform recently announced it would be adding several Gen-Z slang words and terms to help lovers of the English language “span the galaxy of modern life.”

“It’s 2024, and the pace of language change is as rapid as it has ever been,” the website declared.

“Our lexicographers are updating the dictionary more frequently than ever, doing the human-scale work of documenting words across the vast spectrum of the always-evolving English language.”

That dedication to verbiage includes phrases that refer to sweaty breasts, staying excessively in bed, a hip food trend from female TikTokers and a term related to the ever-popular doll and movie “Barbie.”

In other words, those “that have emerged to name the nuances of modern life.”

These are but some of the website’s 327 new entries.

A phrase to describe an individual’s distaste towards another person or entity. Example: This list gives some people the ick .

Gen Z slang to suggest mediocrity or something that is “unimpressive” or “disappointing.”

Many Gen Z terms are now entries on Dictionary.com.

Bussin’

A synonym for feeling “great,” “amazing” or “wonderful” — which can also be achieved by learning previously established words.

Pimples or acne on the breast that come as a result of sweat and bra chafing. Not to be confused with the fashion-forward trend of “underboob” exposure .

Greedflation

The young generation, which needs therapists to help Gen Zers cope with doing taxes , created the term to lay the blame of stark, sky-high prices for consumer goods and living expenses on private sector greediness, rather than “market pressure” of the many global factors at play, in addition to a layoff-impaled domestic economy .

Lots of Gen Z slang are now being entered into dictionaries.

A sound bath is listening to a bevy of bells and chimes for aural therapy and mental well-being. It’s a contrast to young people embracing the concept of walking without headphones and taking in the cacophony of the big city.

Bechdel test

A measure used to chart the representation of female presence in works of fiction, documenting whether a work “includes at least two fairly important female characters who talk to each other about something besides a man.” The concept was initially established in 1985 by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in her comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For.”

This would score high on the Bechdel test.

It denotes the surge of Barbie culture and all that is pink, which was inspired by the Margot Robbie-starring summer 2023 blockbuster, based on the iconic Mattel doll. The concept includes but is not limited to: outfits, decor, accessories, hair bleaching and plastic surgery choices .

Gen Z slang is so popular that its being considered official words.

Bed rotting

Spending an excessive amount of time in bed. Also known as “hurkle-durkle” in Scotland.

Skiplagging

When travelers who face layovers instead stay at their mid-flight stop rather than move on to their final destination. It’s become a common, savvy tactic — though derided by airlines — to save money on airfare.

Girl dinner

A viral TikTok term for low-effort, odd assortments of greedflated foods and groceries cobbled together as a last-ditch meal.

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Many Gen Z terms are now entries on Dictionary.com.

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NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Barbiecore? Girl dinner? Dictionary.com adds over 1,700 new words for 2024

Dictionary.com updated its database for 2024 with several popular new terms, by logan reardon • published february 13, 2024.

As people continue to speak differently, Dictionary.com is trying to keep up.

The website added over 1,700 new or updated definitions on Tuesday -- including popular online phenomenons like "barbiecore," "girl dinner" and "mid."

All the updates were made in order to reflect online trends, health and well-being, social issues, anxieties over climate change and the economy and more.

“The intersection of language, learning and culture is boundless, and we recognize that words have the power to shape thoughts, bridge gaps and reflect our ever-evolving society,” John Kelly, vice president of editorial at Dictionary.com, said in a statement released Tuesday.

Get DFW local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC DFW newsletters .

Other new words added to the website include "the ick," "bed rotting," and "range anxiety," among others.

Here's a list of several updated words and definitions:

Barbiecore  (noun): “An aesthetic or style featuring playful pink outfits, accessories, décor, etc., celebrating and modeled on the wardrobe of the Barbie doll.”

U.S. & World

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7 fast-food chains serving up fish sandwiches for Lent

Girl dinner  (noun): “An often attractively presented collection of snacks that involve little preparation, such as small quantities of cold cuts, cheese, fruit, cherry tomatoes, etc., deemed sufficient to constitute a meal for one.”

Mid  (adjective): “Mediocre, unimpressive or disappointing.”

The ick (noun): "A sudden feeling of disgust or dislike, often in response to the actions of another person."

Bed rotting  (noun): “The practice of spending many hours in bed during the day, often with snacks or an electronic device, as a voluntary retreat from activity or stress.”

Range anxiety  (noun): “The apprehension or fear that an electric vehicle’s battery will run out of power before reaching one’s intended destination or a charging station.”

Bussin' (adjective): "Great; wonderful; amazing."

Pretty privilege (noun): "An unearned and mostly unacknowledged societal advantage that a person has by fitting into the beauty standards of their culture."

Slow fashion  (noun): “A movement among clothing producers and consumers that emphasizes eco-friendly, well-made clothing, maintenance and repair of garments to extend their life span, and a general reduction of one’s consumption of new clothing items.”

Climate breakdown  (noun): “The collective effects of harmful and potentially irreversible trends in climate, specifically those resulting from unchecked global warming.”

Sound bath  (noun): “An instance of sustained listening to the pleasant sounds emanating from a collection of singing bowls, bells, chimes, etc., used to aid in relaxation or meditation and believed to help restore physical and mental wellness.”

Energy poverty  (noun): “A lack of adequate access to safe, affordable sources of electricity or fuel for warmth, light, cooking, etc.”

You can find a deeper breakdown of all the new additions right here .

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Pop culture & slang

There’s a word for that: our dictionary additions for winter 2024.

by Nick Norlen, Senior Editor, and Grant Barrett, Director of Lexicography

It’s 2024, and the pace of language change is as rapid as it has ever been. Our lexicographers are updating the dictionary more frequently than ever, doing the human-scale work of documenting words across the vast spectrum of the always-evolving English language. And wow, the variety is real .

This snapshot of our most recent additions showcases the breadth of terms that have emerged to name the nuances of modern life, including:

  • Terms surfaced from the major topics of the day, including economics ( greedflation ), climate ( climate breakdown ), and social issues ( intimate partner violence ) 
  • Words for things you didn’t know there were words for ( skiplagging ,  bed rotting ,  range anxiety ) 
  • Science terms you’ll encounter in the news ( stellar nursery ,  superfog )
  • Newly prominent health and wellness words ( VO2 max ,  prebiotic ,  keto flu ). 
  • Fashion words, including terms for industry trends ( slow fashion ,  circular fashion ), aesthetics ( Barbiecore ), and names for types of garments ( shacket ,  shortalls ) 
  • And so many more words across an all-encompassing range of the English language ( energy poverty ,  sound bath ,  boobne ).

As usual, this update includes words that are new to the dictionary as well as entries that are newly revised (such as newly added senses of existing words like mid and squish ). Keep in mind that words that are new to the dictionary are not always new to the language (or even remotely recent), but their addition often reflects a prominent place in the lexicon.

As always, all of our dictionary work is descriptive—we describe language as it is really used (not just how we or others may wish it would be used).
 Learn more about how new words get added to Dictionary.com—and how the dictionary works.

Of course, some of the terms in the list below have more than one definition. We’ll highlight just the meanings most relevant to this release.

Girl Dinner. Iván Bravo. 2024.

girl dinner  
 noun.  an often attractively presented collection of snacks that involve little preparation, such as small quantities of cold cuts, cheese, fruit, cherry tomatoes, etc., deemed sufficient to constitute a meal for one.

📝 Girl dinner went viral after TikTok user Olivia Maher used the term in a video in May 2023, possibly shortening an earlier version, hot girl dinner , that often included decadent or youth-maintaining food.

mid 
 adjective. mediocre, unimpressive, or disappointing.

bussin’ adjective. great; wonderful; amazing.

📝 Popular among Gen Z, this term originates in African American culture and is likely based on various senses of bust meaning “to explode,” “to do well,” or “to enjoy.”

The Ick. Iván Bravo. 2024.

the ick noun. a sudden feeling of disgust or dislike, often in response to the actions of another person.

📝 This phrase, popular in dating culture and on TikTok, is thought to trace back to the late 1990s TV show Ally McBeal . The ick is also used as an informal term for an illness, especially a cold or flu.

cheat code noun. a ploy or technique that bypasses traditional methods or rules in order to improve oneself or one’s success.

📝 This more recent sense of the term is an extension of its use in the context of video games, in which it refers to a hidden command, code, etc., used to gain an advantage, such as by advancing levels or enhancing a character’s strengths.

There’s a word for that

range anxiety noun.  the apprehension or fear that an electric vehicle’s battery will run out of power before reaching one’s intended destination or a charging station.

enshittification 
 noun.   the gradual degradation of an online platform or service’s functionality, as part of a cycle in which the platform or service first offers benefits to users to attract them, then pursues more and more profits at the expense of users.

📝 Used in the critical discussion of platforms like TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and others, this term was popularized by writer Cory Doctorow.

skiplagging noun. the practice of purchasing an air ticket for a flight with a layover at one’s true destination, getting off at the layover point, and skipping the last leg of the flight: a workaround to avoid paying a higher fare for a direct flight to one’s destination.

📝 The verb form is skiplag , a compound of skip , “to pass over,” and lag , “an instance of staying behind.”

bed rotting noun. the practice of spending many hours in bed during the day, often with snacks or an electronic device, as a voluntary retreat from activity or stress.

📝 Despite the negative connotation of rotting , many use this term in a positive way to refer to what they consider a form of self-care. The verb form is bed rot .

pretty privilege noun. an unearned and mostly unacknowledged societal advantage that a person has by fitting into the beauty standards of their culture.

📝 Pretty privilege uses the same construction as  white privilege  and similar terms.

Stellar Nursery. Iván Bravo. 2024.

stellar nursery 
 noun. Astronomy.  a molecular cloud in which new stars are being formed.

📝 The James Webb Space Telescope has captured some stunning images of these star-forming regions, including the one pictured below, named 30 Doradus and nicknamed the Tarantula Nebula. Located in the neighboring galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud, it is the largest and brightest stellar nursery in the Local Group, a group of galaxies near the Milky Way.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team

boring billion 
 noun. a period in the earth's development occurring between 1,800 and 800 million years ago that is characterized by relative geological and climatic stability, slow evolutionary development, and low levels of atmospheric oxygen.

geoglyph noun. a large-scale design or pattern on the surface of the land made by arranging stones, rocks, or earth, or by removing ground cover to expose the rock or soil beneath.

📝 Geoglyph is the most well-known of the terms listed here ending in -glyph , which comes from the Greek word for “a carving”;  geo-  means “earth.”

ammoglyph 
 noun. a pattern or design originally created in sand by early humans and now fossilized. 

📝 Coined in 2019 by Canadian geologist Charles William Helm and colleagues based on the Greek ámmo(s) , meaning “sand.”

dendroglyph noun. an image, message, or symbol carved into a tree, especially by Indigenous people and often hundreds of years old, providing cultural and historical information not available from other sources. 

📝 Coined in 1918 by Australian curator Robert Etheridge, Jr., with the combining form  dendro- , meaning “tree." Its use has replaced that of the earlier term arborglyph .

Barbiecore noun. an aesthetic or style featuring playful pink outfits, accessories, decor, etc., celebrating and modeled on the wardrobe of the Barbie doll. 

📝 We’re likely still fully within the  trend of using -core to form names for niche aesthetics , such as  cottagecore  and  normcore .  

sustainable fashion noun. a genre of clothing and other fashion products intended to reduce negative impacts on the environment through the use of ecologically responsible materials and manufacturing, the promotion of longer-lasting style trends, and the popularization of product reuse.

slow fashion noun.  a movement among clothing producers and consumers that emphasizes eco-friendly, well-made clothing, maintenance and repair of garments to extend their lifespan, and a general reduction of one’s consumption of new clothing items. 

📝 This term is used in contrast with  fast fashion . The fast / slow framing is perhaps best known for its use in the distinction between fast food and  slow food , but it will likely continue to be applied in other contexts where there is interest in sustainable practices. 

eco-chic noun. of or relating to a style, design, or product that is attractive and fashionable as well as eco-friendly and sustainable.

shacket noun.  a garment in the style of a button-down shirt, made of a thicker fabric and usually worn over other shirts. 

📝  A combination of shirt and jacket .

shortalls noun.  a pair of shorts with a bib or biblike piece to which shoulder straps are attached. 

📝  A combination of short(s) and overalls .

Entertainment

cozy adjective. relating to a genre of mystery stories with little suspense, explicit violence, or sexual content, often also having amateur sleuths and idyllic, intimate settings. 

📝  In this context, cozy is also sometimes used as a noun to refer to such a story itself, as in I started out reading cozies and moved on to the hard-boiled detective novels .

Bechdel test noun. a test of gender stereotyping and inequality in fiction, having a number of variations and used especially with movies, based on whether the work includes at least two fairly important female characters who talk to each other about something besides a man. 

📝  The first recorded uses of the term Bechdel test come from between 2005 and 2010, but the concept was introduced by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in a 1985 comic strip.

Tommy John surgery noun. an operation to repair a torn ligament on the inner side of the elbow by replacing it with a tendon from elsewhere in the body or from a donor.

📝 Common among baseball players, the surgery gets its name from pitcher Tommy John, on whom the procedure was first performed in 1974. It is formally called ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction .

turf toe noun.  a sprain at the joint between the metatarsus and the phalanx of the big toe, caused when the ligament connecting them under the toe is overextended: typically a sports-related injury, originally associated especially with artificial grass surfaces.

capped  
 adjective. Chiefly British. (of a player) selected as part of a representative team. Example: When she plays her next match for England, she’ll become the most capped player of all time.

📝 Other newly added senses of capped include meanings related to loans, stocks, and landfills.

beer league 
 noun. a community sports league, such as for hockey, softball, or soccer, whose members are amateurs of diverse ages and walks of life and play purely for the fun and socializing involved: games are usually accompanied or followed by alcohol and food

Family & relationships

girl mom  
 noun. a mother of a daughter or daughters, especially one with only a daughter or daughters.

girl dad 
 noun. a father of a daughter or daughters, especially one with only a daughter or daughters.

boy mom noun. a mother of a son or sons, especially one with only a son or sons.

boy dad  
 noun. a father of a son or sons, especially one with only a son or sons. 

📝 These proud terms are used informally to identify as a certain type of parent—you’re likely to encounter these phrases on T-shirts or as hashtags, for example. 

squish  
 noun. an intense feeling of infatuation that is not romantic or sexual in nature; a platonic crush. 

📝 This term is also used in an entirely unrelated way in the context of U.S. politics as a derogatory term for a politician, especially a Republican, who is perceived by members of their own party as overly moderate or willing to compromise.

Health & wellness

sound bath 
 noun.  an instance of sustained listening to the pleasant sounds emanating from a collection of singing bowls, bells, chimes, etc., used to aid in relaxation or meditation and believed to help restore physical and mental wellness. 

VO2 max 
 noun. the maximum volume (V) of oxygen (O 2 ) that a particular person’s body can absorb and use during intense exercise, measured in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute and often used to assess cardiorespiratory fitness.

high-intensity interval training 
 noun. a type of interval training for physical conditioning and fitness that uses short bursts of very intense exertion, alternating with short periods of rest or lighter exertion, to exploit the body’s systems for generating anaerobic energy.

📝 Commonly abbreviated as HIIT .

Tabata noun. an exercise or fitness program involving repeated alternation between usually 20-second bursts of strenuous exertion and 10-second periods of rest, totaling four minutes for an entire round. 

📝 Named after Japanese professor Izumi Tabata, who created the program.

keto flu noun. a temporary feeling of illness or physical unease often experienced by those starting a  ketogenic diet , characterized by fatigue, headaches, muscle soreness, etc., as the body adapts to using fat instead of carbohydrates for fuel. 

📝 Also called carb flu .

micellar water 
 noun.   a liquid skin cleanser made up of tiny particles, or micelles, of mild soap or detergent dispersed in purified water, usually with the addition of moisturizers, vitamins, etc.

prebiotic 
 noun. a substance containing dietary fiber that stimulates the growth or activity of beneficial bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract.

Food & drink

bottarga 
 noun. the roe sac of a fish, especially the gray mullet, prepared by salting, pressing, and drying, and served in various ways, including as a grated garnish, on its own with seasoning, or with vegetables.  

📝 Dining out pro tip: Use Dictionary.com as a menu companion for all those unfamiliar dish components.

soju 
 noun.  a colorless, clear, distilled alcoholic beverage from Korea, often made from a mixture of rice and other starches such as sweet potatoes, wheat, barley, tapioca, etc.

📝 The word soju comes from Korean, from a combination of so , “to burn, roast,” and ju , “alcoholic beverage.”

natto  
 noun. Japanese cooking. a dish of fermented cooked soybeans, often eaten for breakfast over white rice or with toppings such as soy sauce and mustard.

Economics & finance

greedflation noun.  a rise in prices, rents, or the like, that is not due to market pressure or any other factor organic to the economy, but is caused by corporate executives or boards of directors, property owners, etc., solely to increase profits that are already healthy or excessive. 

📝 The verb form is  greedflate . Other recently added inflation words include  shrinkflation  and  shadow inflation .

Greedflation. Iván Bravo. 2024.

dry powder noun. cash reserves, liquid assets, or easily liquidated assets such as readily saleable stocks and bonds, held by a corporation or an individual in order to cover current or future obligations, make new purchases, or take advantage of unforeseen opportunities.

bag holder 
 noun. someone who retains an unprofitable investment rather than selling it at a loss, only to suffer an even worse loss when the investment eventually becomes worthless.

Climate, weather, & environment

climate breakdown noun.  the collective effects of harmful and potentially irreversible trends in climate, specifically those resulting from unchecked global warming.

global boiling 
 noun.  a nonscientific term used to emphasize the trend toward and severity of extreme heat events, especially in regard to public health. 

📝 Climate breakdown and global boiling have emerged as terms intended to communicate the severity of the effects of climate change, along with other prominent terms like  climate crisis  and climate emergency .

extreme heat event 
 noun. Meteorology, Climatology. a heat event classified as being excessive enough to pose a serious threat to public health. 

fire whirl 
 noun. a tornadolike phenomenon created when turbulent air rapidly rising from the site of burning, as in a forest fire, sucks flaming gases, embers, and other fiery debris up into a twisting column, sometimes hundreds of feet in height.

fire tornado 
 noun.  a flaming tornado generated by intense wildfire, rarer, much larger, and more destructive than a fire whirl.

superfog 
 noun. a combination of fog generated by weather conditions and wildfire smoke from damp, smoldering brush, leaves, trees, and other organic materials that often reduces visibility to less than 10 feet. 

carbon market 
 noun.  a commodity trading system through which countries and organizations can buy and sell permits to produce a set amount of carbon dioxide emissions and other atmospheric pollutants. 

📝 This term is just one example of how the word carbon has become shorthand for “carbon dioxide emissions.”

Social issues

intimate partner violence 
 noun. acts of violence or abuse within a romantic relationship.

supervised injection site 
 noun.  a medically supervised facility at which people can inject illicit drugs they have brought with them, a practice intended to reduce overdoses, disease transmission, and other health problems associated with illicit drug use.

food insecure adjective. having or characterized by limited or uncertain access to adequate food. 

📝 This is an adjective version of the more established noun form,  food insecurity .

energy poverty   noun. a lack of adequate access to safe, affordable sources of electricity or fuel for warmth, light, cooking, etc.

Proper names

Even more words.

Uluru 
 noun.  a large, isolated mass of red rock in central Australia, in southwestern Northern Territory: a sacred site for the Anangu people indigenous to the region, and a popular tourist attraction. 1,142 feet (348 meters) high.

📝 Also called Ayers Rock .

worlding noun.  the act or process of bringing a people, culture, nation, etc., into a global sphere of influence, especially the sphere thought of as dominated by Western countries. 

📝 The concept of worlding, influenced by literary theorist Gayatri Spivak, has become popular in academic discussions about colonialism.

Scouser 
noun. Informal. a resident or native of Liverpool, England. 

📝 This other nickname for  Liverpudlians  comes from the word  Scouse , a name for the Liverpool dialect. The word Scouse itself comes from a shortening of  lobscouse , a type of sailor’s stew made of meat, vegetables, and  hardtack .

fakeness noun.  artificial, false, or insincere behavior, speech, etc.; pretense. 

📝 More generally, fakeness is also used to mean “the quality or condition of being false, artificial, or insincere.”

kennel cough noun.  a highly contagious but usually mild respiratory infection in dogs, characterized by a dry hacking or gagging cough and caused by a number of bacteria and viruses.

boobne 
 noun. Informal.  pimples or a rash in the area of the breasts or on the upper back, caused by a bra that chafes, is not clean, or is made of material that is allergenic or not breathable. 

📝 Other acne blend words include  bacne  and  maskne .

Subscribe to our Word of the Day newsletter to get new words delivered every day.

Like learning words for things you didn’t know there were words for?

fire science   noun. the study of fire, with specific disciplines that include the composition of fire, acceleration and suppression of fire, prevention of fire, control of wildfires, and fire-related consequences of climate change.

circular fashion noun. a type of sustainable fashion that promotes minimal manufacturing through the ongoing reuse of garments and accessories or their components.

See even more words we’ve added recently.

Our newly added words and meanings span the galaxy of modern life: greedflation, fire tornado, girl dinner, climate breakdown, skiplagging, bed rotting, range anxiety, keto flu, sound bath, slow fashion, shacket, stellar nursery, superfog, and many more.

February 13, 2024

Barbiecore? Bed rotting? Greedflation? Dictionary.com adds new 2024 words.

annotation definition vocabulary

The way we talk is forever changing as technologies, pop culture and social issues develop — and dictionaries are trying to keep up.

Last year, Oxford Languages picked “ rizz ” as its word of the year; the Collins English Dictionary chose “ AI ”; and Merriam-Webster went for “ authentic .”

Dictionary.com on Tuesday announced that it had added more than 1,700 new or updated definitions — and with “ girl dinner ,” “ Barbiecore ,” “slow fashion,” “climate breakdown” and beyond, they reflect online trends, health and well-being, social issues, anxieties over climate change and the economy, and more.

“The intersection of language, learning and culture is boundless, and we recognize that words have the power to shape thoughts, bridge gaps and reflect our ever-evolving society,” John Kelly, vice president of editorial at Dictionary.com, said in a statement released Tuesday.

Do you have ‘rizz’? Oxford picks its word of the year from Gen Z slang.

Grant Barrett, head of lexicography at Dictionary.com , said, “Our lexicography team captures the nuances of the living, breathing English language and shares English speakers’ creativity and ingenuity.”

The Style section

Here are some of the new and updated entries on Dictionary.com’s list and their meanings:

  • Barbiecore (noun): “An aesthetic or style featuring playful pink outfits, accessories, decor, etc., celebrating and modeled on the wardrobe of the Barbie doll.”
  • Bed rotting (noun): “The practice of spending many hours in bed during the day, often with snacks or an electronic device, as a voluntary retreat from activity or stress.”
  • Mid (adjective): “Mediocre, unimpressive, or disappointing.”
  • Girl dinner (noun): “An often attractively presented collection of snacks that involve little preparation, such as small quantities of cold cuts, cheese, fruit, cherry tomatoes, etc., deemed sufficient to constitute a meal for one.”
  • Slow fashion (noun): “A movement among clothing producers and consumers that emphasizes eco-friendly, well-made clothing, maintenance and repair of garments to extend their lifespan, and a general reduction of one’s consumption of new clothing items.”
  • Climate breakdown (noun): “The collective effects of harmful and potentially irreversible trends in climate, specifically those resulting from unchecked global warming.”
  • Range anxiety (noun): “The apprehension or fear that an electric vehicle’s battery will run out of power before reaching one’s intended destination or a charging station.”
  • Sound bath (noun): “An instance of sustained listening to the pleasant sounds emanating from a collection of singing bowls, bells, chimes, etc., used to aid in relaxation or meditation and believed to help restore physical and mental wellness.”
  • Keto flu (noun): “A temporary feeling of illness or physical unease often experienced by those starting a ketogenic diet , characterized by fatigue, headaches, muscle soreness, etc., as the body adapts to using fat instead of carbohydrates for fuel.”
  • Energy poverty (noun): “A lack of adequate access to safe, affordable sources of electricity or fuel for warmth, light, cooking, etc.”
  • Greedflation (noun): “A rise in prices, rents, or the like, that is not due to market pressure or any other factor organic to the economy, but is caused by corporate executives or boards of directors, property owners, etc., solely to increase profits that are already healthy or excessive.”

Not all the words are based on new trends, and some may have wider meanings than listed here; Dictionary.com says it adds words when its experts decide that they are used widely and largely in the same way, will probably stay and are useful for a general audience.

Sharp. Witty. Thoughtful. Sign up for the Style Memo newsletter.

Rachel Fletcher is an editor of the Cambridge Dictionary, which added thousands of words last year.

That dictionary’s team is “always monitoring” language usage, she said during a Tuesday phone interview, and, in addition to adding new words, also spends time “identifying existing words which are being used in new ways.”

One example of that was Cambridge Dictionary’s 2023 word of the year, “hallucinate,” which refers to when artificial intelligence produces false information. (Dictionary.com named “hallucinate” its 2023 word of the year, too.)

That was “one of a large number of AI-related updates” made by the Cambridge Dictionary last year, Fletcher said. “We all recognized that everyone was talking about AI, and we felt that the word ‘hallucinate’ as a word really got to the heart of why they were talking about it.”

According to Tony Thorne, a lexicologist and language consultant at King’s College London, these types of lists have their own limitations, because they involve attempting to keep up with trends — which is in itself a “quite a difficult job.”

Dictionary.com says its own lexicographers “track a vast number of terms and topics, read a wide variety of writing and transcribed speech, and use corpora (big, searchable collections of texts) to see how terms are actually being used.”

Another issue is the inherent difficulty in trying to assess new forms of language, and the vast array of new terms that are being used, particularly online, Thorne said.

“It’s impossible for any linguist to say how important a new term is, how long it’s going to last, how significant it is,” he said. “So that’s why a lot of the new terms that they add are not new terms but have usually been around on social media, on TikTok, in conversations, for some time — sometimes years — before they’re accepted into the dictionary.”

Where dangerous heat is surging

There’s also a generational component when looking at new words or expressions, as much of the language “is baffling at first sight, and most people over 30 are entirely ignorant of it and ignore it, or they ridicule it if they see it.”

But language change is important — and inevitable, Thorne believes.

“I think new language is about crucial changes — social and cultural changes,” he said. “Even if we’re baby boomers, we should try to keep up, keep abreast of what’s happening.”

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annotation definition vocabulary

IMAGES

  1. annotation meaning english

    annotation definition vocabulary

  2. Tackling Text Complexity through Annotation : Lesson Plans : Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

    annotation definition vocabulary

  3. Pronunciation of Annotation

    annotation definition vocabulary

  4. Simplify Annotation with Marks, Codes, & Abbreviations

    annotation definition vocabulary

  5. Define annotation

    annotation definition vocabulary

  6. How to Annotate

    annotation definition vocabulary

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  3. Word Meaning Vocabulary with usage for SPEAKING and WRITING Band 8 IELTS

  4. Annotate Meaning

  5. English Vocabulary Lesson 8

  6. IB ENGLISH: How to Annotate (Plus Academic Writing Practice)

COMMENTS

  1. Annotation

    the "annotate" family Annotations are simply notes or comments. If you have trouble understanding Shakespeare, you may want to buy a copy of "Hamlet" with annotations on each page that explain all the vocabulary words and major themes.

  2. Annotation Definition & Meaning

    1 : a note added by way of comment or explanation The bibliography was provided with helpful annotations. 2 : the act of annotating something Examples of annotation in a Sentence Without the annotations, the diagram would be hard to understand. the author's annotation of the diagram

  3. ANNOTATION

    a short explanation or note added to a text or image, or the act of adding short explanations or notes: The annotation of literary texts makes them more accessible. The revised edition of the book includes many useful annotations. computing, language specialized

  4. Annotate Definition & Meaning

    : to make or furnish critical or explanatory notes or comment transitive verb : to make or furnish annotations (see annotation sense 1) for (something, such as a literary work or subject) annotated his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy annotative ˈa-nə-ˌtā-tiv adjective annotator ˈa-nə-ˌtā-tər noun Examples of annotate in a Sentence

  5. ANNOTATION Definition & Usage Examples

    honest; fair; straightforward. completely puzzling or perplexing. strictly required, as by etiquette, usage, or fashion. TAKE THE QUIZ TO FIND OUT Origin of annotation 1 First recorded in 1425-75, annotation is from the Latin word annotātiōn- (stem of annotātiō ). See annotate, -ion Other words from annotation re·an·no·ta·tion, noun

  6. Annotation Definition & Meaning

    1 [count] : a note added to a text, book, drawing, etc., as a comment or explanation Without the annotations, the diagram would be hard to understand. 2 [noncount] : the act of adding notes or comments to something : the act of annotating something the author's annotation of the diagram

  7. annotation noun

    /ˌænəˈteɪʃn/ [countable, uncountable] a note or notes added to a book or text giving explanations or comments; the act of adding these notes It will be published with annotations and an index. The new edition is based on previously unpublished manuscripts with full annotation. The software allows annotation of photos for telling stories. Join us

  8. ANNOTATE

    English Meaning of annotate in English annotate verb [ T ] formal uk / ˈæn.ə.teɪt / us / ˈæn.ə.teɪt / Add to word list [ often passive ] to add a short explanation or opinion to a text or image: Annotated editions of Shakespeare's plays help readers to understand old words. an annotated bibliography / manuscript / edition

  9. ANNOTATION definition and meaning

    1. uncountable noun Annotation is the activity of annotating something. She retained a number of copies for further annotation. 2. countable noun [usually plural] An annotation is a note that is added to a text or diagram, often in order to explain it. He supplied annotations to nearly 15,000 musical works.

  10. Annotation Definition & Meaning

    Annotation definition, a critical or explanatory note or body of notes added to a text. See more.

  11. annotation

    an•no•ta•tion (an′ə tā′ shən), n. a critical or explanatory note or body of notes added to a text. the act of annotating. note (def. 1). Abbr.: annot. Latin annotātiōn- (stem of annotātiō ). See annotate, - ion 1425-75 'annotation' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):

  12. ANNOTATE Definition & Usage Examples

    Annotate definition: to supply with critical or explanatory notes; comment upon in notes. See examples of ANNOTATE used in a sentence.

  13. annotate verb

    Definition of annotate verb in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more. ... Questions about grammar and vocabulary? Find the answers with Practical English Usage online, ... annotation noun; affordable. adjective . From the Word list. Oxford 5000. B2.

  14. Annotation Definition & Meaning

    Comments that analyze, explain, or criticize, or a collection of brief summaries of appellate cases that have applied or interpreted, a particular statutory provision. These comments and summaries are appended to, and published with, the statute in a set of volumes.

  15. annotation

    ( computing) Metadata added to a document or program. ( genetics) Information relating to the genetic structure of sequences of bases. Derived terms [ edit] annotational annotationist back-annotation microannotation micro-annotation

  16. Annotation

    1. a critical or explanatory note added to a text. 2. the act of annotating. 3. note (def. 1). [1425-75] Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. annotation

  17. Annotation

    DNA annotation or genome annotation is the process of identifying the locations of genes and all of the coding regions in a genome and determining what those genes do. An annotation (irrespective of the context) is a note added by way of explanation or commentary. Once a genome is sequenced, it needs to be annotated to make sense of it.

  18. Annotating Texts

    What is annotation? Annotation can be: A systematic summary of the text that you create within the document. A key tool for close reading that helps you uncover patterns, notice important words, and identify main points. An active learning strategy that improves comprehension and retention of information.

  19. Annotation Examples Simply Explained

    a reader noting content to be revisited at a later time

  20. Annotations

    Definition and Purpose. Annotating literally means taking notes within the text as you read. As you annotate, you may combine a number of reading strategies—predicting, questioning, dealing with patterns and main ideas, analyzing information—as you physically respond to a text by recording your thoughts. Annotating may occur on a first or ...

  21. From 'woke' to 'queerbait': Dictionary.com adds 300 new words

    Well, folx, you're going to want to see the new entries Dictionary.com has added to describe our collective hellscape. Deadass. And if you didn't understand that, don't worry — that's ...

  22. ANNOTATED

    ANNOTATED meaning: 1. past simple and past participle of annotate 2. to add a short explanation or opinion to a text…. Learn more.

  23. Dictionary.com adds over 300 new entries, including 'girl dinner'

    Bed rotting. Noun; The practice of spending many hours in bed during the day, often with snacks or an electronic device, as a voluntary retreat from activity or stress.

  24. ANNOTATED Definition & Usage Examples

    Annotated definition: supplied with or containing explanatory notes, textual comments, etc.. See examples of ANNOTATED used in a sentence.

  25. Gen Z slang added to Dictionary.com: 'Bed rotting,' 'girl dinner

    The word-defining platform Dictionary.com recently announced it would be adding several Gen-Z slang words and more terms to help lovers of the English language "span the galaxy of modern life."

  26. Dictionary.com adds over 1,700 new words for 2024

    Dictionary.com updated its database for 2024, adding popular online phrases like "barbiecore" and "girl dinner." Here's a full breakdown.

  27. New Dictionary Words for Winter 2024

    slow fashion noun. a movement among clothing producers and consumers that emphasizes eco-friendly, well-made clothing, maintenance and repair of garments to extend their lifespan, and a general reduction of one's consumption of new clothing items.

  28. Dictionary.com adds new words for 2024: Barbiecore, bed rotting and

    Dictionary.com on Tuesday announced that it had added more than 1,700 new or updated definitions — and with "girl dinner," "Barbiecore," "slow fashion," "climate breakdown" and ...