Le Petit Robert has unveiled several words that will be included in the paper edition of the famous dictionary for the year 2023. As every year, these new terms illustrate the developments and the subjects that animate social debates.
Readers will thus find between the pages of the collection, the words “ecoanxiety”, but also “NFT”, “wokism”, or the pronoun “iel” after having added it to its online dictionary in 2021.
[NEW WORDS]
You have certainly already come across the word NFT: it is one of the new words of Petit Robert!
#PetitRobert #MotsNouveaux pic.twitter.com/g9IR3igZFd
— Le Robert (@LeRobert_com) October 10, 2022
This portmanteau word, which contracts “he” and “she”, allows “to evoke a person whatever their gender”, according to their definition.
In another register, the colloquial verb "chiller", Anglicism which is translated as "dragging" or "having a good time doing nothing", makes its appearance, as does the colloquial "go", referring to a "young girl, young woman.
The colloquial expression “gênance”, which translates a “feeling of embarrassment, of discomfort experienced in an embarrassing situation” also completes the collection.
“Fragile Babtou”, “go”, “wokism”….
The terms “woke” and “wokism”, often used by its detractors, are still defined by a “current of thought of American origin which denounces injustice and discrimination”.
The Covid-19 pandemic will also be present in the latest paper edition of Petit Robert with the adjective "covid", to designate a person infected with the virus.
Read alsoLe Petit Robert integrates “iel”: “It is surprising that this pronoun did not make its entrance earlier”
Several words of African origin are also making their debut, as Le Monde Afrique points out.
Among them, the colloquial "go" coming from Ivorian slang, but also the term "brouteur" which refers to one who feeds without effort, or even "babtou" which designates a European or a White in general.
The expression "fragile babtou", also present, pejoratively evokes a person who poses as a victim.
“A highly sought-after word reveals a need for speakers”
Scrutinizing the new uses on TV sets, in press articles, on social networks or in everyday conversations, lexicographers identify thousands of "candidate words" likely to make their way into the reference collection.
After consultation, several dozen of them are finally selected each year.
Three main criteria are taken into account: their frequency of use, their distribution in “various types of discourse: the press, literature, social networks” and their durability.
“A highly sought after word reveals a need for speakers and therefore needs to be subjected to rigorous examination”, thus justifies the Robert on his site.