The social takeover continues. The Oxford English Dictionary announced it will officially recognize “tweet†in its latest update, defining the word as “a posting made on the social networking service Twitter.†(As a verb, it’s defined as “to post on Twitter.â€)
It joins several other tech terms, reports The Los Angeles Times, such as “big data,” meaning “computing data of a very large size”; “crowdsourcing,” which is defined as “the practice of obtaining information or services by soliciting input from a large number of people”; “e-reader,” which is a tablet device used for digital books; and redirect, “which is when a URL takes you from one Web page to another.â€
Other non-tech-based words added include fiscal cliff, flash mob, mani-pedi and young adult.
Having announced the additions via the dictionary’s website, Chief Editor of the OED John Simpson admitted that “tweet†breaks at least one of their rules. “Tweet” was added despite not being used for 10 years, which is noted as one of the rules considered before adding a new word.
While it may seem like the recent addition was Twitter’s debut in the OED, it’s not since “re-tweet†was added in 2011. Longtime OED competitor Merriam-Webster added the word “tweet†in its dictionary in August 2011.
Let’s give OED a hand for making the definition less than 140 characters, the limit for a tweet.