Scrabble adds 300 words to official dictionary

NEW YORK — Scrabble players, time to rethink your game because 300 new words are coming your way, including some long-awaited gems: OK and ew, to name a few.

Merriam-Webster released the sixth edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary on Monday, four years after the last freshening up. The company, at the behest of Scrabble owner Hasbro Inc., left out one possibility under consideration for a hot minute – RBI – after consulting competitive players who thought it potentially too contentious. There was a remote case to be made since RBI has morphed into an actual word, pronounced rib-ee.

But that’s OK because, “OK.” “OK is something Scrabble players have been waiting for, for a long time,” said lexicographer Peter Sokolowski, editor at large at MerriamWebster. “Basically two- and three-letter words are the lifeblood of the game.”

There’s more good news in qapik, adding to an arsenal of 20 playable words beginning with q that don’t need a u. Not that Scrabblers care all that much about definitions, qapik is a monetary unit in Azerbaijan.

“Every time there’s a word with q and no u, it’s a big deal,” Sokolowski said. “Most of these are obscure.”

There are some sweet scorers now eligible for play, including bizjet, and some magical vowel dumps, such as arancini, those Italian balls of cooked rice.

Now, the official dictionary holds more than 100,000 words.

Other newcomers Sokolowski shared are aquafaba, beatdown, zomboid, twerk, sheeple, wayback, bokeh, botnet, emoji, facepalm, frowny, hivemind, puggle and nubber.