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Oxford Dictionary Updated: Manspreading, Brain Fart, Hangry And Awesomesauce All Featured In The New Edition

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 02:53 PST, Aug 28, 2015

Oxford Dictionary just got that wee bit cooler after introducing a plethora of new words in their latest online edition, more than a thousand in total, which reveal the current trends in the use of the English language.

According to The Guardian, words as diverse as manspreading, bants, hangry, brain fart and beer o’clock have all found their way to the quarterly update of the Oxford Dictionary’s online platform. The Oxford Dictionary was first published in 1884, under the rather hefty title of “A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.”

So, next time, when you can’t find yourself a seat on the subway, you will know it is because someone is manspreading – or when you get into a bants with a foul-mouthed jester in a local pub, you will realize it was just not beer o’clock. And if you think all of these words are indeed great, you might be in an awesomesauce mood already!

ITV has released a more detailed list of some of the new words which have found their way to the English language thanks to Oxford Dictionary’s ever-increasing inclusiveness. Below are a few examples.

  • awesomesauce, adj.: (US informal) extremely good; excellent.
  • bants (also bantz), pl. n.: (Brit. informal) playfully teasing or mocking. remarks exchanged with another person or group; banter.
  • beer o’clock, n: an appropriate time of day for starting to drink beer.
  • brain fart, n.: (informal) a temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly.
  • fatberg, n.: a very large mass of solid waste in a sewerage system, consisting especially of congealed fat and personal hygiene products that have been flushed down toilets.
  • hangry, adj.: (informal) bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger.
  • manspreading, n.: the practice whereby a man, especially one travelling on public transport, adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart, in such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or seats.

We guess we could on and on about Oxford Dictionary’s latest additions to the English language, but now would probably be a good time to stop.

New words and phrases find their way to the quarterly update of the Oxford Dictionary’s website once editors gather sufficient evidence that those words and phrases have garnered enough currency in the modern usage of the English language. However, it must be mentioned that a word’s inclusion in the online database does not guarantee a place in the Oxford Dictionary unless historical use can be proved.

So which of the words from the new Oxford Dictionary are you going to add to your vocab now?

[Photo: “OED2 volumes” by Dan (mrpolyonymous on Flickr) Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons]

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