The Word Adorkable is Added to the Collins English Dictionary

Posted on June 16, 2014

The word "adorkable" has now been added to the next edition of the Collins English Dictionary, The word is a blend of adorable" and "dork." It is defined as meaning "socially inept or unfashionable in a charming or endearing way." Collins claims the word was first used on Twitter in March, 2007.

Its use peaked in January, 2012 and is now considered common parlance, accorded to Collins.

That's all fine and good, but for Americans the word adorkable conjured up the smiling visage of Zooey Deschanel who stars in the Fox sitcom New Girl. Her character on the show is the very definition of adorkable and she uses it in conversation a great deal. As for the word being in common parlance, we beg to disagree.

The Guardian reports that Collins hunts for new slang words by asking members of the public to submit them. A team of lexicographers then analyzing the the submitted words. They are checked against the "Collins corpus," the dictionary's 4.5 billion word database of words and their definitions. Then they take the proposed words to Twitter and ask users to vote.

For the 12th print version of the Collins English dictionary, Twitter users were asked to vote on a number words, including fatberg (a big blob of fat or grease found in sewers), duckface (the pouty face celebs make in selfies), and fracktivist (an anti-fracking activist). The results were clear. Adorkable came in first with 30% of the vote. Felfie (a farmer taking a selfie) came in second place, and fatberg came in third. Other words which didn't make the cut were nomakeupselfie (a selfie while wearing no makeup) and gaybourhood (a gay-friendly neighborhood). Here is the breakdown of the vote:



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