'Binge-watch' and More New Words Now Officially Recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary

Television series and movies are a pervasive part of our culture, and our collective obsession with Netflix and easily streamable content extends far beyond the screen. For proof, look no further than the Oxford English Dictionary, which just officially recognized “binge-watch” as a word, USA Today reports, along with more than 900 other words.

Defined as "to watch multiple episodes of (a television programme) consecutively or in rapid succession," binge-watch is just one of the new words added to the UK-based reference book. "Spoiler alert," defined as “a forewarning of a plot spoiler," is also one of the new entries.

A lot can be gleaned about our current cultural moment by looking at new additions to any dictionary. For instance, ongoing discussions surrounding gender, sexuality, and prejudice have prompted the Oxford English Dictionary to recognize the words “microaggression” (a statement or act regarded as prejudice), "misgender" (to refer to someone as a different gender than the one they identify with), and "pansexual" (someone who is attracted to people of all gender identities, beyond the binary identities of male and female).

Several words have also been added to recognize different orientations in respect to romantic (as opposed to sexual) attraction, including "biromantic," "heteroromantic," and "homoromantic." "One of the most conspicuous domains in which the vocabulary of English has expanded in recent decades is that of gender and sexuality," Katherine Connor Martin, head of U.S. Dictionaries at Oxford University Press, told USA Today.

Other fun and notable new words include:

Beerfest
Bewhiskered
Broccoli rabe
Energy vampire
Facebook (as a verb)
Hip-hoppy
Impactful
Lab rat
Positive energy
Teenagery
Teensploitation
Untippable
Whataboutery
Yessir
Zenned-out
Zeus-like

To see the full list of new additions, you can visit the dictionary's website here.

[h/t USA Today]