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'Broligarchy', 'delulu' and 'skibidi' added to Cambridge Dictionary [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-08-18

The Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries of English compete every year to find the most credible but sensational words to add. Oxford went with "brain rot" this year, and Cambridge is all on on just that: 'Tradwife', 'delulu' and 'skibidi' are its latest additions.

The words have grown in use across social and mainstream media and beyond, linked to celebrities and influencers such as Kim Kardashian (skibidi), Hannah Neeleman of @ballerinafarm (tradwife) and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (delulu with no solulu). Other words linked to working from home, such as "mouse jiggler" – a device or app that simulates mouse movement and stops your computer going into sleep mode – and climate change-related phrases like "forever chemical", have also been added.

My favorite this year, though, is "Broligarchy," in reference to the tech billionaires imposing their wealth on politics.

"We only add words where we think they'll have staying power," says Colin McIntosh, lexical programme manager at the Cambridge Dictionary.

skibidi. adj., humorous slang. A word that can have different meanings such as "cool" or "bad," or can be used with no real meaning as a jok.



— skibidi [dictionary.cambridge.org]

Here's something nice from the page where they track candidates for addition:

technofossil noun [C]

UK /ˈtek.nəʊ.ˌfɒs.ᵊl/ US /ˈtek.nəʊ.ˌfɑː.sᵊl/

an object that could remain on the Earth for a very long period after it has been thrown away and is likely to be found and studied by people in the future "Plastic will definitely be a signature 'technofossil', because it is incredibly durable, we are making massive amounts of it, and it gets around the entire globe," says the palaeontologist Prof Sarah Gabbott, a University of Leicester expert on the way that fossils form. "So wherever those future civilisations dig, they are going to find plastic. There will be a plastic signal that will wrap around the globe."

[theguardian.com, 22 February 2025]

"Ah, Dr. Johnson!"

Previously:

• Dictionary.com now offers definitions for emoji

• Sriracha, yowza, and sheeple among 300 new words in Scrabble dictionary

• Flapper's dictionary: 1922

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