‘Latinx,’ ‘hangry’ and 840 more words added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary

Merriam-Webster has added more than 840 words to its dictionary. If you’re impatient and “hangry,” here’s the “TL;DR”: some of your “faves” might have made the list.

Despite the controversy around the gender-neutral Latinx (the case for and against), Merriam-Webster has added “Latinx,” which it officially defines as “of, relating to, or marked by Latin American heritage —used as a gender-neutral alternative to Latino or Latina.”

The list is heavy on food-related words like “hangry,” which Merriam-Webster defines as “irritable or angry because of hunger.” Other culinary terms added to the dictionary include “mise en place” (“a culinary process in which ingredients are prepared and organized... before cooking”), “zoodle” (“a long, thin strip of zucchini that resembles a string or narrow ribbon of pasta”) and “guac” (you have to pay extra for this definition).

If you prefer a liquid lunch, you might enjoy new entries such as “hophead” (“a beer enthusiast”), who knows what to do with a “flight” (“a selection of alcoholic drinks ... for tasting as a group”), but you might be better off with a “mocktail” (“a nonalcoholic cocktail”).

As is usually the case when Merriam-Webster adds new words, entries inspired by technology and computers are well represented. The dictionary has added a definition for “airplane mode,” which it defines as “an operating mode for an electronic device ... in which the device does not connect to wireless networks and cannot send or receive communications ... or access the Internet but remains usable for other functions.”

Word nerds who can’t stand it when nouns get verbed are unlikely to be pleased with “Instagramming,” defined as “post[ing] (a picture) to the Instagram photo-sharing service.”

Many of the new words are popular with young people, both millennials and members of “Generation Z” (“the generation of people born in the late 1990s and early 2000s”). These include “fave” (“favorite”), “rando” (“a person who is not known or recognizable or whose appearance ... seems unprompted or unwelcome”) and “time suck” (“an activity to which one devotes a lot of time that might be better or more productively spent doing other things”).

If you’ve made it this far, you probably don’t need the “TL;DR” version — that is, “too long; didn’t read — used to say that something would require too much time to read.