Twerk, Meh, and Inukshuk Some of the New Words Added to Oxford Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has added a number of new words to its online dictionary including several Canadian words.

Freegan: a blend of free and vegan, someone who eats discarded food for ethical or ecological reasons (Photo Credit: Oxford Dictionary)

Among the words added are freegan, meh, yarn bombing , and twerk. New Canadian words added include depanneur, inukshuk, mangia-cake, stagette, and keener. According to OED, the word depanneur is the Canadian French term for convenience store, while inukshuk is a structure of rough stones stacked in the form of a human figure. The Italian-Canadian word mangia-cake means to eat cake, but it is also a derogatory term used by some Canadians of Italian descent to refer to a non-Italian.

The word stagette was first used in U.S. English and refers to a woman attending a social function without a partner, but in Canada it is commonly referred to as a party given to a woman about to be married.

Photo Credit: Oxford Dictionary

The word getting the most attention in this round of additions is twerk, as the OED says it has been around since 1890.

“When the word twerk burst into the global vocabulary of English a few years ago with reference to a dance involving thrusting movements of the bottom and hips, most accounts of its origin pointed in the same direction, to the New Orleans ‘bounce’ music scene of the 1990s, and in particular to a 1993 recording by DJ Jubilee, ‘Jubilee All’, whose refrain exhorted dancers to ‘twerk, baby, twerk’,” explains OED. “However, information in a new entry published in the historical Oxford English Dictionary this month, as part of the June 2015 update, reveals that the word was in fact present in English more than 170 years earlier.”

The Simpsons popularized the word meh (Photo Credit: YouTube)

The OED’s new entry gives 1820 as the first date for the word twerk, then used as a noun meaning ‘a twisting or jerking movement; a twitch’ and originally spelled twirk. In spite of the fact that the twirk spelling is earlier, the OED has made the twerk spelling the headword form. This is because while it is a later development, it is the most common spelling overall, particularly in recent use.

The blasé interjection meh, which expresses indifference or a lack of enthusiasm, was popularized by the U.S. cartoon series the Simpsons. While the world was used online in 1992, it gained worldwide popularity with the cartoon.