Pop culture plays a huge part in the process of transforming made up, nonsensical words into perfectly acceptable parts of the lexicon. Today, Merriam-Webster announced via Twitter that "embiggen" - a word that frequently pops up in Marvel's Ms Marvel series whenever Kamala Khan shapeshifts her body to make it larger - is one of the 850 new words most recently added to the dictionary.
David Harbour's Jim Hopper made a big impression on viewers after the Netflix series Stranger Things debuted, but season two kicked it up a notch. Harbour's Hopper dance was admired around the world and then some, and cemented him the coveted "dad bod" title. Now Merriam-Webster is making sure we know how to use it.
Merriam-Webster reported Sunday evening that "fascism" is currently the top look-up on its site. According to the dictionary, searches for "misogyny," "bigot," "xenophobe," "racism" and "xenophobia" also spiked after Tuesday's election. I wonder why.
