Neckbeard, mansplain, now in Oxford Dictionary online: Amazeballs

No, this blog post is not mere “clickbait.” Nor is the image of a “neckbeard” that’s illustrating it. And please don’t take this as me “mansplaining” to you.

Clickbait (Internet content “whose main purpose is to attract attention and draw visitors to a particular web page”), neckbeard (“a growth of hair on a man’s neck,” or a “socially inept person”) and mansplain (a man explaining something to someone, “typically a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing”) are three of the many new words the Oxford Dictionaries have added to their online database this month.

“We don’t mean to humblebrag,” OxfordDictionaries.com announced Wednesday on its website, but their list of new words and expressions is “bare good and nailed on to interest and impress you.”

“Humblebrag” is something many writers do. As Oxford explains, it’s “an ostensibly modest or self-deprecating statement whose actual purpose is to draw attention to something of which one is proud.” Bare is a very old word; but using “bare” to mean “very” or “really” (as in “that girl is bare lazy”) is a 21st-century usage popular in Britain.

Other new words and expressions in the database are “amazeballs,” “bro hug,” “Deep Web,” (a part of the Internet invisible to most search engines) and “listicle,” an article on the Internet presented in the form of a numbered or bullet-pointed list.

Some of our other favorites on the list of Oxford neologisms:

Cray: an adjective meaning “crazy,” but with one less syllable.

Hate-watch: to watch a television show with the express intent of mocking it.

Side-eye: a sidelong glance.

Time-poor: what happens when you work too much.

Vape: inhaling and exhaling from an electronic cigarette.

Hector tweets about topics literary as @TobarWriter