Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), wokism and halloumi are among the words that enter the 2023 edition of the Larousse dictionary, the publishing house said on Monday.
“This new edition incorporates 150 new words, meanings, phrases and expressions testifying to both the vitality and the diversity of the French language,”
said Larousse editions in a press release.
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The definition of NFT (or JNF in French) is:
“A non-reproducible and tamper-proof digital file representing a unique asset, virtual or physical object (work of art, tweet, piece of music, etc.), which is listed in a blockchain and to which is associated a digital certificate of authenticity and ownership”.
The Larousse also devotes crypto art, the artistic movement that produces NFTs.
As for wokism, it is the
"woke-inspired ideology, centered on issues of equality, justice and the defense of minorities, sometimes perceived as prejudicial to republican universalism"
.
Separatism (
“willingness of a minority, generally religious, to place its own laws above national legislation”
), invisibilization or grossophobia are also adopted.
More than 40 consecrated personalities
The Covid-19 pandemic remains an important provider of new terms, including “long Covid”, “vaccination pass” and “sanitary”, “vaccinodrome”, but also “essential trade”, “distancial”, or even “enfermiste” and “reassuring” to characterize the two antagonistic discourses on public health measures.
Among the foreign words, Cypriot cheese, halloumi, will rub shoulders with konjac (Japanese plant), kakapo (New Zealand parrot), chick lit (literature for young women in English), tomte (Swedish elf) or even yodeling (singing technique from the German-speaking Alps).
The Francophonie is not to be outdone with regional expressions that appear in the dictionary: the holidaymaker
"who comes to spend his money on the Atlantic coast to taste the joys of the Ocean"
will thus be taxed with "baignassoute" in Charente while the French (especially if he is Parisian)
"came from the continent to spend his holidays in Corsica"
will obtain the nickname of "pinzutu" on the island of beauty.
To read also "Wokism", "author", "grossophobia" ... The new words of the Petit Larousse 2023
In terms of proper names, the Larousse devotes the creator and artistic director of the Balmain house Olivier Rousteing, the dancer Misty Copeland, the cyclist Julian Alaphilippe, the footballer Kylian Mbappé Lottin, the cook Thierry Marx, the actors François Cluzet, François Damiens and François Morel or the Filipino-American journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Angelita Ressa.
The dictionary, one of the two reference in France with Le Robert, is celebrating its 170th anniversary.
To be published on June 15, it has more than 64,000 words and some 28,000 proper names.
