The Dictionary of New Words (Woordenboek van Nieuwe Woorden or WNW) is an online dictionary that describes words that have entered the Dutch language since the year 2000. New words are also known as neologisms. Neologisms are popular: journalists, students, and pupils want to know all about them and often write about them. All over the world, lexicographers (people who make dictionaries) and other linguistic researchers describe them in dictionary projects or talk about them at congresses. Therefore, in 2018, the Dutch Language Institute initiated a dictionary specifically for neologisms. It contains quite detailed descriptions of new words: not just their definitions, but also information about grammar, spelling and etymology (origin of the word). Of each word it says when and under what circumstances it entered (and sometimes left) common use, showing the ‘life cycle’ of every word. You can also find the source in which the word has been used the first time, and how the word was formed. Furthermore, it shows how the word fits into our language: how it may be similar to other, already familiar words, but still has its own meaning.
The WNW does not just describe words that people continue to use in the long term (such as app and selfie), but also many words that are used only for a short period. The COVID-19 crisis produced many new words, such as knuffelcontact and raamvisite. Ten years ago, quite a lot of new words were inspired by the economic recession, such as bankendomino ‘series of bankruptcies of connected financial institutions’ and recessionista ‘a fashion-conscious woman who tries to dress as fashionably as possible while spending as little money as possible; a fashionista in times of crisis’. Other situations in which many new words are introduced, are elections and the formations of new governments.
Many neologisms don’t ‘stick’ and never end up in a general language dictionary, such as the Dictionary of Contemporary Dutch (Algemeen Nederlands Woordenboek or ANW). However, it would be unfortunate if they were not registered somewhere, because their structure is often quite interesting. For instance, they may have a similar morphological structure to other new words (besides lokpubers there are also lokoma’s, lokfietsen and lokkoffers: all new compounds that start with the verbal stem lok-) and they tend to be similar in their formation and meaning to words that we are already familiar with. And what is more: new words clearly represent a certain period of time.
The WNW is an online dictionary in progress and is not based on a printed version. The dictionary entries are designed for this purpose, and from the start we have considered the different opportunities, demands and problems that come with the development of a new digital dictionary, with regard to both data collection, editing and publication.
For example, where relevant, you may find images, videos or audio samples added to the description of a word. It may well happen that you look up a neologism that has not yet been added to the dictionary. Just like any other dictionary, a dictionary of new words is never completed: new words are created continuously. Even though the WNW is updated frequently, new words do not appear in the dictionary on the same day they entered our language. If you think of a word that is still missing in the dictionary, please get in touch with us.
To describe new words, the WNW uses various sources, including the ANW Corpus. This corpus contains over 100 million words and has been compiled specifically for the Dictionary of Contemporary Dutch (ANW). It contains material from all domains of society. In addition, we make thorough use of relevant material from other sources, such as the Corpus of Contemporary Dutch (Corpus Hedendaags Nederlands or CHN), and the internet.
The current version of the WNW contains 16.555 words, which are described in 3940 keywords that contain a range of ‘traditional’ dictionary articles. In total, the keywords have 4237 meanings, 4496 synonyms, 15.427 sentence examples, 3333 combinations, 37 set combinations, and 0 proverbs. Furthermore, you will find 201 images, 93 videos, and 0 audio samples.
When we talk about the number of words that this dictionary contains, we refer to the sum total of all keywords plus the words listed in their word families (derivatives, compounds and other parts of the word family). Not included are words listed as synonyms, feminyms or other categories that don’t have their own article in the dictionary.
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