Dictionary.com adds nine new LGBTQ+ words & a big gender-inclusive change

Dictionary.com has added eight LGBTQ+ terms to its latest official update. While some are well-known terms, like the verb “gay marry,” four of the terms describe specific types of romantic and sexual attractions, adding to our nuanced understanding of human identity.

To make the website more inclusive, Dictionary.com also removed binary-gendered phrases through its pages, replacing “him or her” with “their” and “he or she” with “they.”

Related: Dictionary.com just added several new LGBTQ+ words & also “grundle”

You probably know what pinkwashing and queerbaiting are, but how about abrosexual and multisexual?

The 566 newly added terms are largely taken from technology, climate change, and youth slang. However, the newer LGBTQ+-related terms reflect changing social awareness about trans identity, sexual fluidity, and intersex bodies.

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Here are the terms and their definitions:

• diverse-owned: (adjective) (of a business) owned by someone who is part of a group historically underrepresented in entrepreneurship, such as women, ethnic or racial minorities, LGBTQ+ people, etc.

• gay marry: (verb) to marry a person of the same gender.

• amalgagender: (adjective) noting or relating to a person whose gender identity is linked to or impacted by the fact that they are intersex.

• stealth: (adjective) (of a transgender person) living as a cisgender member of one’s identified gender, without revealing that one is transgender.

The website also added four words referring to nuanced sexual and romantic identities.

• polysexual: (adjective) noting or relating to a person who is sexually attracted to people of various genders, but not necessarily to people of all genders.

• polyromantic: (adjective) noting or relating to a person who is romantically attracted to people of various genders, but not necessarily to people of all genders.

• autosexual: (adjective). noting or relating to a person who primarily feels sexual attraction to and desire for themselves, as opposed to other people.

• autoromantic: (adjective). noting or relating to a person who primarily feels romantic attraction to and desire for themselves, as opposed to other people.

To make Dictionary.com more inclusive, the website’s lexicographers rewrote entries to replace gendered pronouns with gender-neutral pronouns or to avoid using a pronoun at all.

For example, the old entry for “folk singer” was “a singer who specializes in folk songs, usually providing their own accompaniment on his or her guitar.” The new entry reads “… on their guitar.” While the old entry for “volunteer” was “a person who voluntarily offers himself or herself for a service or undertaking,” the new entry removes the pronouns altogether, reading, “a person who voluntarily offers to perform a service or undertaking.”

“This change was made for two reasons: inclusivity and usage,” Dictionary.com lexicographer K. E. Callaway explained. “On the inclusivity side, ‘his’ or ‘her’ does not include people who use other pronouns. In terms of usage, ‘they’ is simply much more common as a generic pronoun than ‘he’ or ‘she,’ including in spoken and all but the most formal types of written English. In fact, this has been the case for decades (even though people rarely notice it in speech).”

“By making this change, we have made our entries more similar to how people actually speak and write,” Callaway added, “hopefully making the entries more natural-sounding — and thus more accessible to readers.”