Merriam-Webster Adds 1,400 New Words For 2026

Ever heard of “looksmaxxing”? If you haven’t, your child might have – it’s an online term referring to the sometimes extreme pursuit of physical perfection.

Maybe you’ve been “Rickrolled”, or sent a link to Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up music video in disguise as a prank. To handle this humiliation, perhaps you’ll indulge in “copium”, or the “avoidance, denial, or minimisation” of a negative or embarrassing circumstance or situation.

These are all examples of the 1,400 new words and definitions recently added to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. The additions “reflect words and meanings that have demonstrated widespread use over time, offering a window into the world today,” the dictionary’s site reads.

Some of these fresh entries – AGI, short for “artificial general intelligence”, and “glow-up,” which means a “dramatic positive change in someone or something’s physical appearance” – feel quite zeitgeist-y.

But Merriam-Webster said that it’s trying to avoid entering “flash in the pan” trends into their centuries-old publication.

Instead, the dictionary looks for words which meet three criteria: frequent, widespread, and meaningful use.

That means additions have to be used often, over a sustained period of time. People from different industries and locations need to be able to recognise the word, and it has to have a useful meaning.

Still, there is “no committee, no advocacy, no meetings for new word inclusion” for this edition.

A suggestion can be denied but later admitted; time may prove or disprove its relevance.

Here are some of the new entries, as well as their meanings:

• Superfood – “a food…that is rich in nutrients”,
• Chili crisp – “a spicy, crunchy condiment made typically of oil, fried chili peppers, and often other aromatics”,
• Cake pop – “a lollipop… made usually of a compressed ball of cake crumbs and icing”,
• Cuffing season – “a time of the year when people who are not married or in a relationship begin looking for a short-term romantic partner to spend the colder months of the year with”,
• Crashout – “a mental or emotional breakdown”,
• Yacht rock – “a style of soft rock music originating in the 1970s and 1980s”,
• California sober – “recreational use of marijuana and/or alcohol combined with abstinence from other drugs”,
• Shapewear – “tight-fitting undergarments designed to shape and smooth the body”,
• Neckbeards – either “a socially awkward gamer or computer nerd” or “a misogynistic or ultraconservative Internet troll”,
• Trash panda – raccoons,
• Mandela effect – “the experience of many people having the same false memory”,
• Vibe coding – “using an artificial intelligence system to generate computer code”,
• AGI – stands for artificial general intelligence,
• Uncanny valley – “feelings of unease or revulsion in response to the nearly but imperfectly lifelike quality of something”,
• Promposal – “a creative and often elaborately or extravagantly staged request for someone to be one’s date for a prom”,
• Parasocial – “a one-sided emotional connection with someone… whom one does not know personally”,
• Meme coin – “an altcoin that is created typically as a humorous tribute to something… or someone… and that typically has no real utility”.

If you want to see how up-to-date your slang knowledge is, read our Gen Z guide.