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Cambridge Dictionary’s screen time is skyrocketing. This week, the world’s largest online dictionary is expanding its lexicon with 6,000 new additions including the extremely online picks “Skibidi,” “Tradwife,” and “Delulu.”
The nonsensical meme term “Skibidi” is defined as “a word that can have different meanings such as ‘cool’ or ‘bad,’ or can be used with no real meaning as a joke.” The accompanying list of example sentences put into context just how much we’ve collectively lost the plot. “‘Skibidi, skibidi, skibidi,’ a boy of around seven sang to himself, as he dribbled a football,” the first reads. Another offers, “That wasn’t very skibidi rizz of you.” Whatever that means.
“Tradwife” is more conventional. Short for traditional wife, the term is defined as “a married woman, especially one who posts on social media, who stays at home doing cooking, cleaning, etc. and has children that she takes care of.” The definition example clarifies, “Trad wives are not just traditional stay-at-home mothers, but social media influencers making money for content.”
“Internet culture is changing the English language, and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the dictionary,” Cambridge Dictionary’s lexical program manager Colin McIntosh said in a statement. This has been the case for more than a decade. In 2014, the Oxford Dictionary expanded its lexicon to include “amazeballs,” “binge-watch,” “hate-watch,” “FML,” SMH,” “douchebaggery,” and “YOLO.” Three years later, Merriam-Webster added “NSFW,” “binge-watch,” “photobomb,” “ghosting,” and “shade.”
“Delulu” is no different. Cambridge Dictionary defines the term as “believing things that are not real or true, usually because you choose to.” And for some reason, its leading example is straight out of a Wattpad fan fiction. “You’re at a concert right at the back and you think an idol made eye contact with you … people may call you delulu,” it reads. The second example points fingers at the generation responsible for this development: “As Gen Z say, I’ve entered my ‘delulu era.’”
