‘Delulu,’ ‘Skibidi’ and ‘Tradwife’ Are Among More Than 6,000 Words Added to the Cambridge Dictionary
Many of the additions reflect how internet culture has changed the English language in recent years
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No, you’re not delusional: “Delulu” is now an official word in the Cambridge Dictionary, a popular online language resource.
The buzzy shortening of “delusional” is one of 6,212 new entries to the dictionary. Among them are “tradwife,” a portmanteau of “traditional wife” that describes a controversial subculture of submissive, domestic married women who promote their lifestyles online; “broligarchy,” which describes wealthy men who usually work in tech and wield or seek political influence; and “skibidi,” a gibberish viral word that Cambridge’s own definition says can have “no real meaning.”
Viral internet moments can be fleeting, but Colin McIntosh, the lexical program manager at Cambridge Dictionary, says experts select words that they think will have longevity.
“We only add words where we think they’ll have staying power,” McIntosh says in a statement. “Internet culture is changing the English language, and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the dictionary.”
Not every word in the latest round of additions is as novel as “skibidi,” which is derived from an uncanny animated YouTube series called Skibidi Toilet that dates back to 2023.
Quick fact: The Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year
In 2024, the dictionary selected “manifest”—which readers looked up nearly 130,000 times—as its word of the year.
The word “lewk” was added to Cambridge this year, three years after it was added to Merriam-Webster and more than a decade after it was popularized by fashion influencers and drag queens. Another addition was “inspo,” a term that has referred to inspirational online images since the early days of Instagram.
Even words like “delulu” have been around longer than people might think, Christian Ilbury, a sociolinguistics lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, tells the Associated Press’ Lydia Doye.
“It’s really just the increase in visibility and potential uptake amongst communities who may not have engaged with those words before,” Ilbury says of the addition of viral words to dictionaries like Cambridge.
Some of the dictionary’s newest words reflect shifts in human behavior and culture. A “mouse jiggler” is defined as software that makes it look like you’re online and working even if you’re not, a product of the post-pandemic surge in remote work environments. A new definition for “snackable” describes internet content that is short enough to keep up with shrinking attention spans. The term “forever chemical” is now in the dictionary, reflecting growing concern over damaging artificial chemicals found in consumer products.
Wendalyn Nichols, a publishing manager for Cambridge Dictionary, tells the New York Times’ Alisha Haridasani Gupta that choosing new words is a “craft” that involves analyzing online search traffic and social media trends.
The Cambridge Dictionary isn’t the only dictionary being shaped by internet culture. Every year, the Oxford English Dictionary chooses a word of the year. In 2024, that word was “brain rot,” a term that describes the feeling of wasting too much time online. Merriam-Webster touts terms like “nepo baby,” “cash grab” and “touch grass,” which is shorthand for the antidote to brain rot—getting off your phone and out into the world.
A dictionary should be a “public record of how people use language,” Ilbury tells the AP, “and so if people are now using words like ‘skibidi’ or ‘delulu,’ then the dictionary should take account of that.”