The Oxford English Dictionary has a new last word

Bet you can’t pronounce it.

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, eighth grader Samara St. Louis was cramming for a spelling bee in 2012, when she stumbled upon a word that quickly became her favorite.

“It’s the last word in the dictionary and it’s fun to say and it’s fun to spell,” she told the Post Ledger.

She was speaking of “Zyzzyva,” an odd little word that often appeared as the final entry in many English dictionaries.

But the Oxford English Dictionary, considered by many as the standard-bearer of dictionaries, ended with “zythum,” which referred to an ancient Egyptian malt beer.

That’s no longer the case. The dictionary just announced several new additions to its vast pages, including St. Louis’s favorite word, “Zyzzyva,” which now has the unique distinction of being the OED’s last word.

It’s a noun, pronounced “zih-zih-vah” and defined as “a genus of tropical weevils (family Curculionidae) native to South America and typically found on or near palm trees.”

For the uninformed, a weevil is a sort of beetle, generally small and herbivorous. The most familiar is a small brown variety referred to as a rice weevil. As its nickname suggests, these are often found in stored rice.

Generally, according to Orkin, “if the weevils manage to find an opening and invade the home, the homeowner often finds hundreds of insects crawling on the walls and windowsills.”