Dictionary.com Adds 'Womyn' to 'All the Words' Section

Dictionary.com has added "womyn," an alternate spelling of "woman," to its online dictionary, the company told Newsweek in an email Wednesday.

The word is "used by some feminists to avoid the perceived sexism in the suffix '-men,'" the website wrote in its definition of the word, which is featured in the site's "All the Words" section.

"Womyn has received increased attention in recent years in part because the language surrounding gender and sexuality is evolving. This is particularly notable in our language concerning nonbinary gender. Womyn, with a Y, is felt by many in the LGBTQ+ community to exclude trans women, who may prefer womxn, with an X (created in the same vein as the gender-neutral terms Latinx or Chicanx)," John Kelly, research editor of Dictionary.com, told Newsweek in an emailed statement.

Candice Bradley, managing editor of Dictionary.com, noted that "we are finding that many people are coming to Dictionary.com searching terms like womyn to get more than just the traditional dictionary definition."

The dictionary also added a range of terms to expand its selection based on social media and pop culture searches. "Plogging," a term that the dictionary describes as "a Swedish exercise trend that combines jogging with picking up litter;" "hamster angle," which is a "novelty term for when a selfie makes your face look chubby, like a hamster's"; and "birb," a "playful way to refer to cute birds, particularly pet birds," were among the other terms added.

Dictionaries have, in recent years, shifted to incorporate more slang terms. In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries named an emoji as its Word of the Year for the first time.

Merriam-Webster has begun adding new definitions for old words, which, this year, included noting that "snowflake" could mean "someone regarded or treated as unique or special" and "someone who is overly sensitive." The dictionary also noted the political use of "purple," adding that the term can reference geographic areas with split Democrat and Republican voters, as opposed to heavily Republican or heavily Democrat areas.

Dictionaries have also selected terms with distinctly political overtones as their words of the year. Dictionary.com chose "misinformation" as its word of the year in November.

The year before, the Collins Dictionary declared that "fake news" was the term of the year, saying that the use of the term had increased 365 percent since the previous year.