More than 800 words have been added to the dictionary. (Photo / iStock)

Instagram, hangry and bingeable added to Merriam-Webster

Author: Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2018, 6:04PM

Merriam-Webster has added more than 840 words to its dictionary.

The list is heavy on food-related words like 'hangry', which Merriam-Webster defines as 'irritable or angry because of hunger'.

If you prefer a liquid lunch, you might enjoy new entries such as 'hophead' ("a beer enthusiast")

Word nerds who can't stand it when nouns get turned into verbs are unlikely to be pleased with 'Instagramming', defined as 'post[ing] (a picture) to the Instagram photo-sharing service'.

Other social media words include 'retweet', when a post on Twitter is shared by other users, and 'bingeable', referring to multiple episodes of a TV show that can be watched in rapid succession.

Many of the new words are popular with young people, including 'time suck' ('an activity to which one devotes a lot of time that might be better or more productively spent doing other things'), and 'rando', a shortened version of random.

If you reached the end of this article, then you wouldn't need to worry about 'TL;DR', an abbreviation of 'Too Long, Didn't Read'.

LISTEN TO RAYLENE AND ANDREW DISCUSS THE NEW WORDS ABOVE