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December 2020 update

 

Our latest update: over 500 new words, sub-entries, and revisions have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary in our latest update, including clockwork orange, follically challenged, and adulting.

Release notes: learn more about the words added to the OED this quarter in our new word notes by OED Revision Editor, Jonathan Dent.

Release notes: learn about the work of our editors in updating the etymology and variant forms section in OED entries that have yet to be fully revised in an article by OED Deputy Chief Editor, Phillip Durkin.

Release notes: read about the revision of candy in a blog post by OED Junior Editor, Kirsty Dunbar.

Oxford Languages Word of the Year 2020

2020 has been anything but ordinary, and this is a year which cannot be neatly accommodated in one single word. Download our Words of an Unprecedented Year report to read the full story.




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Word of the day
white-livered, adj.
1546
Cowardly, feeble-spirited, pusillanimous. Cf. liver4b, lily-livered...
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Recently published
	clock rate, n.
	mixed-race, adj.
	follow-me, adj. and n.
	gooseberry fool, n.


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