Airfryer, bodyshaming added to Van Dale dictionary

The new edition of Dikke Van Dale contains 979 new English keywords, including influencer, airfryer, Covid-19, body-shaming, and big tech. English words make up about 10 percent of the new words added to the Dutch dictionary. The 16th edition of the Dikke Van Dale, which will publish on March 22, also includes words from Chinese, Italian, Moroccan, and Spanish, among others, NU.nl reports.

Another significant change the editors made is to include the gender-neutral x next to words referring to people, where applicable. These words already had the m for male or v for female after them. Words that clearly indicate biological gender won't get the gender-neutral x.

The new edition of the dictionary also includes words around current topics like climate change, inclusiveness, and social media. Coronavirus-related words are also new to the dictionary. Over 10,000 new expressions and proverbs are also included. And the definition of each word has been modernized. No words have been deleted.

According to the publisher, the many new words and modernized definitions show that language changes along with society.

The previous edition of the Dikke Van Dale was published in 2015.