From ‘looksmaxxing’ to ‘parasocial,’ here are the new words Merriam-Webster added — and more UCLA media

HuffPost spoke with UCLA sociolinguist Daria Bahtina about the 14,000 words and definitions Merriam-Webster recently incorporated into its dictionary. Bahtina said the clearest trend in the new list is how much vocabulary now documents digitally mediated life, but that there is also a thread including words that name experiences, relationships and social types. “We clearly enjoy having compact ways to recognize both who we are and the kinds of people and experiences around us,” she said.