How Does a Word Get Added to the Dictionary?

The English language is always evolving, and dictionaries need to be updated frequently to keep up with changing times. But not all neologisms earn a permanent place in the dictionary — their lexicographical immortality is entirely dependent on meeting a set of certain criteria.

To learn more about how words get added to the dictionary, we spoke with senior editor Emily Brewster of Merriam-Webster. As a lexicographer, Brewster plays a key role in deciding which terms make it into the dictionary each year and which fall by the wayside. Here’s a look at what she had to say in our interview, which has been edited for clarity.

Brewster: Words have to meet three criteria: a significant amount of evidence of a word in use, in a variety of publications and contexts, over a period of time. All of those three criteria are intentionally vague. Every word meets those criteria, but in a different way. For example, the word “COVID-19” was entered only 34 days after the word had been coined. It was the fastest that any word has ever been entered in a Merriam-Webster dictionary. 

The amount of time we let a word germinate and show that it’s really an official member of the language is more like five or even 10 years, and there are plenty of words where it’s significantly longer. But that amount of time has been shrinking because words are now able to proliferate and show widespread use geographically in an amount of time that keeps getting shorter and shorter.

Brewster: For the Merriam-Webster.com dictionary, we usually do two updates a year. COVID-19 [the time period] got a special edition; it was a special release just for COVID-related words. I think there were maybe about 50 terms that got in for that; that’s very unusual. It just seemed pretty urgent, as there were a lot of words that people were having questions about, and so we made an exception to the usual schedule.

But in general, it’s usually two updates a year that we do, and there are usually several hundred words that are being updated [or added]. We could just put in one word at a time, but that would be a very clunky, impractical sort of process because any new addition to the dictionary is likely to have implications on other parts of the dictionary. Anytime we use a word in defining text or in an example sentence [in a new usage], that use of that word also has to be entered in the dictionary. A dictionary is necessarily circular. Everything in it has to be defined by something else in it.

So we do not make just one-off changes. We are able to correct typos, but in general, we do what we call our releases and will be working on a whole batch of words. Sometimes they relate to a particular topic, but more often they’re from all over the lexical field.

Brewster: We’re constantly doing both. Any definition that is in one of our dictionaries is possibly in need of revision at any time. We’re constantly examining these things. I have notes that I’ve made to myself to see if this new meaning of this word is ready [for an update] yet, and I will return to it and see if it is or not. We’re also examining words that come up because we can see what people search for at Merriam-Webster.com and [decide] whether we enter it or not.

Then we also have different resources that we use to see new vocabulary that’s kind of percolating in the language. It really just varies. As a definer, we’re always updating definitions and adding new definitions. Depends on what kind of project we’re working on and what words we’re coming across and that sort of thing. Sometimes an editor is working on a group defining project [meaning working on a specific category of words], and sometimes they’re just going through and examining the list of words that we’re tracking to see if they’re fully established yet.

Brewster: For a long time, it was every 10 years that we would do a new edition of the Collegiate Dictionary. But the 11th edition came out in 2003, so this was a much longer period of time. That’s just because of practical matters regarding the publishing industry, really. We were very busy updating the Merriam-Webster.com dictionary, and we also spent years producing another very new kind of dictionary called Merriam-Webster’s Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary; it’s a monolingual dictionary for non-native English speakers. 

And we make updates; the 11th Collegiate actually had regular [printed] updates being made all the time. And the 12th Collegiate will also be updated. But a new edition means cover to cover, every entry is potentially open to being reexamined. Really broad changes can be made to the style of the dictionary.

Brewster: For the Merriam-Webster.com dictionary, we do not usually remove words because we don’t need to. There are no space constraints. The reason for removing words from a print dictionary is that you really want it to be affordable and relatively portable. The 12th edition is actually a bigger book. The idea of it being portable and affordable has shifted a little bit, because these days, people who are likely to buy a print dictionary are going to be interested in the object itself. It’s not the kind of thing people are going to be toting around in their backpacks with them. But a print dictionary is necessarily subject to space constraints and you can only fit so much between the covers, so we do remove words in that case. 

Most of the time, words that get removed are related to outdated technologies. The word “wagonette” was a word that was removed between the 11th and 12th Collegiate editions. Nobody rides in a wagonette anymore, and it’s not even a word that you’re likely to come across in old literature. We wanted to keep words that you’re still likely to come across in 19th-century literature, which is still widely read. But we didn’t need to include words that were very obscure, that were only used by a limited number of botanists, for example. 

Sometimes we will systematically make a change in how we are covering vocabulary. So, we might decide that a term that currently has its own entry is now better addressed in an entry for a related word. I remember at one point, we had the word “color film” and the word “black and white film.” They each got their own entry. They don’t need to both have their own entries now, right? You can cover color film and black and white film in the entry for “film,” and that is an adequate way to cover it.

Brewster: Our perspective is that if you come across one of these hateful, terrible words, you should be able to understand what it means coming from a neutral, authoritative source like a dictionary. And we are very careful to include usage information that tells the reader: This is deeply offensive, or this term is very disparaging.

We see it very much as our job to include those words because they’re established, but then also to give really solid information to the reader about the qualities that these words carry and how they’re likely to be received. We will provide the information for you to do what you decide to do, knowing what you need to know to make a decision about whether to use that word or not.

Brewster: We’re constantly monitoring all of the words. That’s just a huge part of being a lexicographer. We have these files that have been going for more than a century where we’re watching words come and go. Sometimes they never really become established, so then there are just these relics in our files that you think, “Oh, well, that word was used for a little while and it never made it in.” 

You can look at our slang page on Merriam-Webster.com, and these words are not in the official dictionary, but they are treated specifically as new slang. That’s a good source to see what words may qualify. We also have a feature called “Words We’re Watching,” where we’ll write articles about new words that haven’t yet met our criteria for entry. A lot of these then go on to be entered, and so the article will be updated to say this word was entered into the dictionary at this particular time.

Brewster: Sure, people can and do email us, and they can also contact us on social media and say, “Hey, you should really put this one in.” These things do get read, but you won’t always get a reply. But regionalisms take longer to get in because we don’t want to define regionalisms that are still very much restricted to their region. So it’s not that a regionalism isn’t a word; it can be a word a long time before it gets into the dictionary. But we aim to cover words that are established more broadly in the language.

Brewster: Well, openings don’t come up all that often, but keep an eye out. As far as being qualified for the position, you need to have a great facility with English — since we do English-language dictionaries. You also have to have a really good feel for language, and you have to be OK with spending hours and hours and hours analyzing what any particular word means.

My own background is in linguistics and philosophy, but any background is useful because the vocabulary of the language covers any field. So having a math background could be helpful, or having a sociology background can be useful. It’s really the mind that is drawn to analyzing language, and that is interested in pulling words apart.

Brewster: I do like the word “noctivagant,” meaning “going about at night.” Sometimes I talk to schools, and it’s a word that kids can pull apart by its parts to understand what it means. So I think that’s a fun word.