Cambridge dictionary changes definition of man and woman
KTTH (Seattle) talk radio host Jason Rantz discusses the dictionary changing the definition of man and woman on ‘Fox News @ Night.’
The world’s leading digital dictionary announced that it added several terms related to the LGBTQ community and progressive politics this week.
Among 566 new words added to Dictionary.com this year were "polysexual" and "amalgagender."
The massive English language database defined "polysexual" as an adjective "noting or relating to a person who is sexually attracted to people of various genders, but not necessarily to people of all genders."
The entry for "amalgagender" defined it as an adjective "noting or relating to a person whose gender identity is linked to or impacted by the fact that they are intersex."
Dictionary.com added several LGBTQ-related terms to its database on this week. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
To further clarify, the definition for "intersex" read, "noting or relating to a person, animal, or plant having reproductive organs, genitals, hormones, or chromosomal patterns that do not fall under typical definitions of male and female."
Other words added to the site this year included pop culture references and other terms related to identity and relationships.
Dictionary.com’s vice president of editorial John Kelly told NBC News.com about the new entries, stating, "Gender and identity have been particularly dynamic, and productive areas of language change in the past 15 years or so. Whether it be socially or medically, there is a vocabulary component that is emerging, breaking through into the mainstream, that people need to know that they’re going to encounter."
Kelly said that these new progressive terms meet the "four criteria" that the site uses to determine what is added to it. Detailing these criteria, he said they ask the following questions: "Is it widely used, does it have shared meaning, does it demonstrate staying power and is it going to be useful for a general audience?"
In addition to the inclusion of more than 500 words, Dictionary.com revised the definitions of over 2000 existing words, with 400 of them updated to replace or remove gendered pronouns.
For example, NBC News noted that the site changed the definition of "volunteer" from "A person who voluntarily offers himself or herself for a service or undertaking," to "A person who offers to perform a service or undertaking."
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Dictionary.com added new words this week including "polysexual" and "amalgagender." (Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)
Kelly told the outlet, "We don’t go about our lives going, ‘Hey, I’m looking for some volunteers, you know, someone who offers himself or herself to do that.’ That construction is cumbersome and exclusive and we were overdue to make that change across our dictionary."
The VP acknowledged that some audiences might see the inclusion of such terms or revisions as political, but denied there was an agenda behind the updates. He stated, "Language really is a lightning rod. All of a sudden it can feel, when these new words get announced, that there’s an agenda behind it. I want to be clear: There isn’t an agenda; there is documentation."
"Whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not, whether it’s our personal views or not, it’s our job to be a service to people to capture that language as objectively as possible," Kelly added.
The outlet pointed out that last year, Dictionary.com added entries for other LGBTQ-related terms, including "demisexual," "neopronoun" and "aromantic."
Dictionary.com has not responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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