Scrabble has updated its dictionary to include all kinds of words that we use every day on social media, with wonders such as emoji, ew and facepalm.

According to Peter Sokolowski, an editor and lexicographer with Merriam-Webster, words consisting of two or three letter combinations are the lifeblood of Scrabble, leading OK and ew to be acceptable words in the dictionary.

Merriam-Webster has released the sixth edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, so players had better study up to find what gems they will now be able to place on the board.

Yowza, twerk, coulda and kinda added to Scrabble dictionary

Everyone who plays Scrabble knows what it’s like when you are left with a few awkward letters to play. Now you might find it easier after the 300 new words have been added to the dictionary. Sokolowsky also said players have been waiting to use the word OK for some time. Well, now it’s OK to use OK.

The letter “q” has always been a problem in Scrabble if you have no “u” to follow it, so Scrabble has added such gems as Qapik, which is the currency used in Azerbaijan, along with 20 other playable words starting with “q.”

Twerk and facepalm have also made the grade, along with some high-scoring words like bizjet, the abbreviation for a small business plane.

If used in the plural, the latter can score you 120 points during the opening play of Scrabble. This is because it uses seven tiles as well as a double word bonus when played at the beginning of the game. Sokolowsky said many of the words are obscure, but now if a word has a q and no u, it’s not a big deal.

Scrabble players consulted over new words

As reported by the Guardian, Sokolowsky said Merriam-Webster consulted with members of the North American Scrabble Players Association while updating their Scrabble dictionary, to ensure they agreed which words would be desirable in the game.

The US dictionary company put out its first official Scrabble dictionary back in 1976. Up until that time, players used any normal dictionary available to them. As reported by the BBC, even though the dictionary is US-based, the words will be allowable in the UK too.

Sokolowsky said that among his favourite new entries, he thinks ew is the most interesting, as it expresses something new in common language today. He went on to say they are adding what you could call transcribed speech to the dictionary, including sounds like mm-hmm, ew, or kinda and coulda.

Sokolowsky went on to say these words were not traditionally in the dictionary. However, as a lot of our daily communication these days is done via social media and texting, this has become a new group of spellings for the Scrabble dictionary.

There are also more foreign words included now. For instance, anyone with a losing streak in Scrabble can use a popular German-rooted word, schneid, which is a term used in sports for a losing streak. The French word macaron is now also acceptable, which is a round meringue cake enjoyed in France.

According to the following tweet, bitcoin has also been added.

If you are a ”Harry Potter” fan, you will no doubt be delighted at the addition of the word puggle to the dictionary.

Other gems that have been added include sheeple, bokeh, beatdown, aquafaba, botnet, wayback, hivemind, frowny and nubber.

So go and get the Scrabble game down from that shelf and experiment with all the new vocabulary that is now a part of the popular game. However, if you are new to the game, the Scrabble dictionary now has over 100,000 words which are acceptable to play, so start studying and winning! The new edition of the dictionary will also make a great Christmas present this year.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED