Language is not a fixed thing. If you need any proof of that, go read Shakespeare or something. No, but really, language is a constantly evolving, amorphous being. It changes and adapts to its environment. Take 2020 for example, in the course of one—extremely momentous—year, the English language adopted an entire host of new phrases to reflect our situation and communicate our new reality. (Had you ever said “Zoom happy hour” before last year? Me neither.) Who better to formally arbitrate our current vocabulary than Merriam-Webster themselves? Yes, the folks at the eponymous dictionary actually add new (and additional meanings to existing) words annually in a bid to modernize the language and this year’s batch just dropped. But first, a few gems from last year: self-isolate, WFH, contactless.
There are, of course, important additions by Merriam-Webster to the 2021 English language, like deplatform and super-spreader, that accurately depict our modern speech, but because we’re a food site and all we can think or talk about is food, we’re going to be focusing on the new words that have to do with, you guessed it, food.
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