NFT, wokism, halloumi… Like every year, Larousse published the new words that will appear in the next edition of its famous dictionary. This new version “integrates 150 new words, meanings, phrases and expressions testifying to both the vitality and the diversity of the French language”, the editions said in a press release on Monday.
Non-fungible tokens (NFT) are featured. The definition used is: “Non-reproducible and tamper-proof digital file representing a unique asset, virtual or physical object (work of art, tweet, piece of music, etc.), which is listed in a blockchain and to which is associated a digital certificate of authenticity and ownership”. “Crypto art”, the artistic movement that produces NFTs, is also consecrated.
The Covid-19 provider of new words
wokism, which has agitated conservative circles in France and around the world, is defined as “the woke-inspired ideology, centered on issues of equality, justice and the defense of minorities, sometimes perceived as an attack on universalism Republican”. Separatism (“willingness of a minority, generally religious, to place its own laws above national legislation”), invisibilization or grossophobia are also adopted.
The Covid-19 pandemic is obviously an important provider of new terms. We thus find “Covid long”, “vaccination pass” and “sanitary”, “vaccinodrome”, but also “essential trade” or even the adjectives “enfermiste” and “reassuring” to characterize the two antagonistic discourses on public health measures. .
Already more than 64,000 words in the Larousse
Among foreign words, Cypriot cheese, halloumi, rub shoulders with konjac (Japanese plant), kakapo (New Zealand parrot), chick lit (literature for young women in English), tomte (Swedish elf) or even yodeling (singing technique from the German-speaking Alps).
As for proper names, the Larousse devotes the creator Olivier Rousteing, the dancer Misty Copeland, the cook Thierry Marx or the Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Angelita Ressa. The dictionary, one of the two reference in France with Le Robert, is celebrating its 170th anniversary. Coming out June 15, it has over 64,000 words and some 28,000 proper nouns.
