Do you and your bae watch the latest bingeable series on Netflix and overshare your relationship on social media? Or do you imagine yourself sipping champas and planning a fashion collab with your blud?
These are examples of some of the 2,862 new words added to the existing 276,000 in the new edition of Collins Official Scrabble Words.
Scrabble lovers can also be inspired by fashion, food and fitness, whether it be normcore (deliberately normal style of dress), athleisure (wearing sports clothes as leisurewear), nduja, aquafaba (vegan substitute for egg whites), sriracha, bao (steamed dumpling), arancini, hench, afterburn (burning of calories after exercise) or dadbod.
A whole host of new Scrabble words relate to current lifestyle trends including plogging (picking up litter while jogging), sharenting (sharing news and images of one’s children on social media), babymoon (early period of new parenthood), dancecore (type of electronic dance music), zen (state of calm attentiveness), fleek (used in the phrase ‘on fleek’, stylish) and bizjet (small aeroplane used bybusiness people).
Slang terms and interjections have also made it onto the new list so Scrabble players can use ew, ok, yowza, rello, preggo, and gloomster.
Words relating to gender identity also feature in the new list including cisgender, transphobia, genderqueer and the neutral pronoun ze. As does politics, and with new words making daily headlines, it’s hard to avoid mentioning omnishambles, Remainer and postfact.
Wordies can also enjoy Scrabble triumphs with some high-scoring and useful new entries including asphyxying (29), equivocacy (29), and hackerazzo (27), plus dox, ok, ew, ume, ze and zen.
Philip Nelkon, four-time British Scrabble champion, is delighted with the inclusion of some new two-letter words: “We all know that two-letter words are the lifeblood of high-score Scrabble, enabling us to make those high-scoring parallel plays involving many words. Now, for the first time since 2007, there are three new two-letter words to enhance our Scrabble firepower. If you’ve been following the media, you’ll have seen that one of these – OK – has been the source of much controversy. Well, the word list compilers have gone judgy and made their decision – it’s in.”
The 2019 edition will be used in tournament and club play from July.
Featured new words – full definitions and Scrabble points
Slang Words and Youth Culture
BAE sweetheart or lover (5 points)
BLUD friend (7 points)
CAPICHE do you understand? (16 points)
CAPISH do you understand? (13 points)
EW expression of disgust (5 points)
FLEEK as in ‘on fleek’, stylish (12 points)
GLOOMSTER person with a gloomy outlook (12 points)
INSTAGRAM share (a photo) using the Instagram app (12 points)
OK okay (6 points)
OVERSHARE share too much about oneself (15 points)
PREGGO pregnant (10 points)
RELLO relative (5 points)
SMACKEROO loud kiss (17 points)
YOWZA used to express enthusiasm or excitement (20 points)
Politics and Current Affairs
AGENDER of a person who does not identify with a gender (9 points)
ANTIFA antifascist organisation (9 points)
BIOPLASTIC organic plastic (16 points)
CISGENDER having an assigned birth gender and gender identity that are
the same (13 points)
FATBERG large mass of fat in a sewer (13 points)
GENDERQUEER person with a non-traditional gender identity (22 points)
KOMPROMAT potentially damaging documents, photographs, etc kept for
blackmail (19 points)
MANSPLAIN instance of a man explaining something to a woman in a
condescending way (13 points)
MANSPREADING when a male passenger spreads his legs into the seats beside him (18 points)
MISGENDER refer to a person as the wrong gender (13 points)
OMNISHAMBLES thoroughly mismanaged situation (21 points)
POSTTRUTH relating to a culture in which appeals to the emotions prevail over facts and logic (14 points)
REMAINER person who remains (10 points)
SHEBAGGING when a female passenger places her bag on the seat beside her (18 points)
TRANSPERSON transgender or transsexual person (13 points)
TRANSPHOBIA hatred or fear of transgender people (18 points)
UPSKIRTING taking photographs under a woman’s skirt or dress without consent (17 points)
ZE gender-neutral pronoun (11 points)
Modern Lifestyles
AFTERBURN burning of calories after exercise (14 points)
ATHLEISURE wearing sports clothes as leisurewear (13 points)
BABYMOON early period of new parenthood (17 points)
BICURIOUS showing an interest in bisexuality (13 points)
BINGEABLE easy to consume in large quantities (14 points)
BIZJET small aeroplane used by businesspeople (24 points)
BURQUINI swimming costume covering the whole body apart from the face, hands and feet (19 points)
DANCECORE type of electronic dance music (14 points)
FREEMIUM free service with paid additional options (15 points)
HENCH fit and muscular (13 points)
INCEL involuntary celibate (7 points)
NORMCORE deliberately normal style of dress (12 points)
OVERSHARE share too much about oneself (15 points)
SHARENTING sharing news, images, etc of one’s children on social media (14 points)
WORDIE lover of words (10 points)
ZEN state of calm attentiveness (12 points)
Food
AQUAFABA vegan substitute for egg whites (22 points)
ARANCINI fried rice balls with savoury filling (10 points)
BANGBELLY dense cake with sweet and savoury ingredients (17 points)
BAO steamed dumpling (5 points)
BUTTERCREAM type of thick, sweet icing (17 points)
JAMBUSTER jelly-filled doughnut (20 points)
JOLLOF as in jollof rice, a west African dish made from rice and meat or fish (16 points)
MACARON small round meringue cake with two halves sandwiching a filling (11 points)
MATCHA Japanese green tea (13 points)
NDUJA spicy pork paste (13 points)
SAMMIE sandwich (10 points)
SCRUNCHIN small crisp piece of fried pork fat (16 points)
SRIRACHA type of spicy sauce (13 points)
Technology
BLOCKCHAIN system for storing digital currency transactions (23 points)
CLEANTECH clean technology (16 points)
DOX publish someone’s personal information on the internet (11 points)
FINTECH financial services technology (15 points)
HACKERAZZO person who hacks a celebrity’s personal computer (27 points)
SMISHING phishing via text messages (14 points)
Scrabble interest
ANTIVAXXER person opposed to vaccination (19 points)
BEZELLESS without a bezel (20 points)
EW expression of disgust (5 points)
EXOME part of the genome consisting of exons (14 points)
EXTROPIAN believer in extropy (18 points)
JUGAAD (in Indian English) problem solving (15 points)
OK okay (6 points)
QAPIK monetary unit of Azerbaijan (20 points)
UME sour Japanese fruit (5 points)
VAX vaccination, vaccine (13 points)
YOWZA used to express enthusiasm or excitement (20 points)
ZE gender-neutral pronoun (11 points)
ZEN state of calm attentiveness (12 points)
ZOMBOID resembling a zombie (21 points)
