The Oxford English Dictionary is the unrivalled reference to the meaning, history and pronunciation of the English language. It defines over half a million words, and its ten volumes took 50 years to compile. These days, the OED publishes quarterly updates to the online edition. In the June 2017 update, they added 600 new words, including ‘particle zoo’ (a generic term for the weird names of subatomic particles), ‘Baltic’ (very cold) and also ‘post-truth’ (relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping political debate or public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief). Got that? Good.

We now have a new final word in the alphabetical list: ‘Zyzzyva’ (which is defined in the quiz below). It replaces ‘zythum’, a kind of malt beer brewed in ancient Egypt.

So, how many of these new words can you identify? I've listed 20 added in June 2017, and have given four possible definitions for each – can you spot the correct one?

You'll find a link to the answers at the foot of the page, but no peeking until you've guessed them all!

1. arribada


a) coffee bean

b) goal celebration

c) mass of nesting turtles

d) railway terminus

2. arrope


a) grape syrup

b) lasso

c) palm oil

d) statistical outlier

3. cantefable


a) folk ballad

b) mathematical curve

c) melon

d) writing desk

4. chana


a) chickpea

b) elephant dung

c) house on stilts

d) local government officer

5. chankonabe


a) cherry blossom scene

b) nuclear waste

c) poo emoji

d) sumo wrestler’s dish

6. chantlate


a) boat

b) missed cue

c) opera singer

d) wood supporting roofing tiles

7. chanty


a) chamber pot

b) folk song

c) precocious child

d) slum dwelling

8. Chaource


a) Channel Islands stock exchange

b) poisonous shrub

c) Goddess of retribution

d) soft cheese

9. cometesimal


a) party

b) plough

c) small comet

d) very large number

10. ginga


a) comic book

b) mutated cell nucleus

c) redhead

d) swaying dance movement

11. Gini


a) group of Indian Ocean fish

b) Maori burial site

c) measure of economic inequality

d) The Devil

12. Ginsu


a) board game

b) martial art

c) medicinal shrub

d) sharp-bladed knife

13. groundie


a) Air Force maintenance engineer

b) coffee

c) cricket groundsman

d) tennis stroke

14. hygge


a) cosiness

b) drunkenness

c) largeness

d) ugliness

15. sangschaw


a) carved ivory

b) literary festival

c) raincoat

d) robin

16. songo


a) bird

b) convict

c) Cuban music

d) drain

17. songthaew


a) beach umbrella

b) bus

c) distilled pineapple juice

d) sandwich

18. veve


a) cousin

b) goose

c) happiness

d) voodoo symbol

19. widdly


a) illegible

b) showy

c) tiny

d) unbalanced

20. Zyzzyva


a) bone disease

b) chess gambit

c) Persian god

d) weevil

All done? Click the picture for the answers.

Icy's Quizzes and More Archive

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