News

Meet 5,000 Brand-New Scrabble Words

by Lauren Barbato

Aug. 5, 2014

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Ever since "selfie" was added to the dictionary, it's only been a matter of time before you could break it out on a Scrabble board for nine points. For the first time in over a decade, Scrabble is updating its dictionary with 5,000 new words, so now you can quit challenging whether or not "te" counts as a word. (Clue: It does now!) The newly revised Official Scrabble Players Dictionary from Merriam-Webster will be released Aug. 11, so make sure to brush up on your Scrabble skills in the coming days.

First published in 1978, the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary currently features more than 100,000 acceptable words. Still, that wasn't enough for dedicated Scrabble players, including North American Scrabble Players Association champion Robin Pollock Daniel. "Being able to hook an 'e' underneath 't' means that I can play far more words," Daniel told The Associated Press. "The more two-letter words we have, the more possibilities a word will fit."

Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster, added in a statement:

Language is constantly evolving and new words are added to Merriam-Webster dictionaries on an ongoing basis. Now thousands of those words can officially be played on the Scrabble game board, as long as they meet the Scrabble game's criteria for length and styling.

Merriam-Webster has yet to publicly release the entire 5,000-word list, but the dictionary company did give us a taste of what's new. Here are some of the weirdest new words appearing on a Scrabble board near you: