What Word Did You lust Use?

• Position: MERRIAM-WEBSTER

Some 520 new words and meanings have been added to the Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. These words and definitions offer a snapshot of how the language evolves, as they reflect back to us facts about our experiences and circumstances. From newly and urgently prominent technical terms like convalescent plasma to playful terms like the @ in "don't @ me," these additions tell us something about who we are, and, in many cases, specifically about who we are at this moment in time.

"Language is a measure of culture, but also, in many ways, language can be a measure of time," explains Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster. "The new words a language's speakers choose to adopt are the words they need to express themselves and to explain their world. When enough of us use these words to communicate, it becomes the dictionary's job to catalogue them and report on how they are used."

The COVID-19 pandemic that has shaped our lives for the past year is shaping our language as well. This update includes new meanings of pod and bubble: each can refer to a small group of people who regularly interact closely with just one another in order to minimize exposure and reduce the transmission of infection. Bubble has a new sports meaning as well, referring to the particular kind of isolation sports teams have orchestrated to continue playing during the pandemic.

Speakers require the language to respond to the devastating effects of the disease itself: the term long-hauler describes someone who experiences one or more longterm effects following initial improvement or recovery from COVID-19 or any serious illness.

"While the pandemic may dominate the current era, other additions remind us that there are many things going on: 'second gentleman,' defined as 'the husband or male partner of a vice president or second in command of a country or jurisdiction,' has met our criteria for entry, as has 'cancel culture,' [which is] the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure.'

"The word 'decarceration' has been entered, thanks to its recent prominence; we define it as simply 'release from imprisonment,' and also as 'the practice or policy of reducing the number of people subject to imprisonment.'"

Two other additions are so...