ICYMI, pumpkin spice among newest entries into Merriam-webster

Finding out that shrinkflation, adorkable, subvariant and even pumpkin spice are now officially in the dictionary might make you exclaim “Yeet!”

ICYMI, those are five of the 370 words and phrases that MerriamWebster added to its dictionary this month, the publisher announced Wednesday. Oh yeah, ICYMI, short for“in case you missed it,”was also added.

“Some of these words will amuse or inspire, others may provoke debate. Our job is to capture the language as it is used,” Peter Sokolowski, MerriamWebster’s editor at large, said in a statement.

Worldwide inflation has made shrinkflation a household word. It is defined by the Springfield, Massachusetts publisher as“the practice of reducing a product’s amount or volume per unit while continuing to offer it at the same price.” Think, going to the grocery store and finding that orange juice is no longer available in 64 fluid ounce cartons, just 59 ounce.

Pumpkin spice — that polarizing blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and allspice that’s used to flavor, well, just about everything every fall these days — has been around for years but is finally in the dictionary.

Many of the words are slang or used informally on social media. For example, Adorkable, a mashup of dorky and adorable, means “socially awkward or quirky in a way that is endearing.

The worldwide coronavirus pandemic has pushed terms once heard almost exclusively in medical circles onto everyone’s tongue, including subvariant, booster dose, and emergency use authorization, which are all new

entries.