The new edition of the book features 500 new playable words including bae, hygge, matcha, spork, and zonkey.
With over 100,000 playable two- to eight- letter words, the additions reflect the changing ways in which words are included in the dictionary.
“Yeehaw is like so many of the older, informal terms. They were more spoken than written, and the gold standard for dictionary editing was always written evidence. So a term like yeehaw, which we all know from our childhood and in movies and TV, was something you heard. You didn’t read it that often,” Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, Peter Sokolowski said.
The last book was published in 2018, when 300 words were added.
In 2020, the North American Scrabble Players Association also removed offensive words from tournaments. “How can we in this day tell prospective members that they can only play with us if they accept that offensive slurs have no meaning when played on a board?” CEO John Chew said in a statement at the time.
The official Scrabble dictionary is also searchable online; there are over 100,000 words in the dictionary.
Enjoy Scrabble? Have a go at our Daily Crossword