Grammable, smashburger and bracketology are among the new words added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, reports Brian Niemietz in New York

THE Merriam-Webster Dictionary has announced the addition of 690 new words to its listings, including sports terms beast mode, bracketology and GOATED.

“We’re very excited by this new batch of words,” Merriam-Webster Editor at Large Peter Sokolowski said.
“We hope there is as much insight and satisfaction in reading them as we got from defining them.”

Beast mode defines “an extremely aggressive or energetic style or manner that someone (such as an athlete) adopts temporarily (as to overpower an opponent in a fight or competition).”

Bracketology is the study of tournament brackets, pertaining largely to the NCAA basketball tournament beginning in March, while GOATED – derived from the term Greatest Of All Time – describes someone who’s the best ever at what they do.

Social media terms also figure prominently in the new definitions, with the addition to thirst trap (“a photo or video shared for the purpose of attracting attention”), ‘grammable (“suitable to be posted on Instagram”), and finsta (“a secret or incognito account on Instagram.”)

Other new words entering the nearly 200-year-old publisher’s lexicon are food-related such as chef’s kiss – a gesture known to anyone who has cooked or tasted a culinary masterpiece for which there are no words.

Cheffy and smashburger are also on the list, with the former describing qualities of a professional chef and the latter being the process of pressing a hamburger patty onto a heated grill.

Merriam-Webster says its dictionary now includes about 470,000 entries.