'Guac,' 'Hangry,' and 'Zoodle' Among New Food Words Legitimized by the Dictionary

The dictionary doesn't take a vacation. While we were all enjoying the last official day of summer, Merriam-Webster was busy making over 840 new words—including a whole slew of food terms—dictionary official. As with the publisher's last batch of fresh definitions, which hit their website back in March, there's some slang, a handful of international dishes, a few cooking terms, and, mysteriously, no mention of "pumpkin spice" or "PSL." (Maybe next year?)

September 2018's new food entries are: "avo" (sure), "guac" (okay), "marg" (you can't include avo and guac without it), "zuke" (short for "zucchini"), "zoodle" (but no "spiralizer"), "mocktail" (the designated driver of the cocktail world), "hophead" (which used to mean "drug addict" but now refers to beer enthusiasts), "hangry" (also, hangrier and hangriest), "flight" (as in, a selection of alcoholic drinks for tasting as a group), "red bush tea" (or rooibos), "coquito" (a Puerto Rican cocktail made with rum, coconuts, and spices), "quaffable" (enjoyable to drink, like, "man, this coquito is quaffable"), "gochujang" (the spicy Korean paste made from red chili peppers, rice, and fermented soybeans), "food bank" (less commonly referred to as a food pantry), "iftar" (the sundown meal that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan), "Wagyu" (which can also be spelled with a lower-case "w"), mise en place (like meal prep, but French), and dragon fruit (the winner of this year's "wait, that wasn't in the dictionary already?" award).

As always, the most interesting part of these new definitions is the "first known use" footnote at the bottom of each one. Like, the word mocktail has been around since 1916! And people were combining the words "hungry" and "angry" in 1956. Meanwhile, Merriam-Webster posits that guac was first uttered in 1983, while avo didn't enter the lexicon until 2000, making the former term a millennial and the latter firmly planted in Gen Z.