Gigil: phrase describing ‘cute aggression’ amongst new entries to Oxford English Dictionary

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Gigil: phrase describing ‘cute aggression’ amongst new entries to Oxford English Dictionary

Have you ever ever held a pet that was so unbelievably fluffy and lovable you didn’t know how one can convey the sturdy urge to squeeze its head with out sounding like a maniac? Properly, now there’s a phrase for it: gigil.

Gigil (pronounced ghee-gill) is without doubt one of the new phrases which have made it into the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

Gigil, extracted from the Philippines’ Tagalog language, refers to what psychologists describe as cute aggression: “[a] feeling so intense that it provides us the irresistible urge to tightly clench our fingers, grit our tooth, and pinch or squeeze whomever or no matter it’s we discover so lovable”.

Gigil might be deployed as a noun denoting the sensation or as an adjective for experiencing the sensation, equivalent to: “That pet is making me gigil.”

With 600,000 phrases, the OED is without doubt one of the most complete dictionaries within the English-speaking world.

Its editors contemplate hundreds of solutions for brand spanking new phrases yearly that come from far and huge and from quite a lot of sources, together with the OED’s personal analysis and crowdsourcing appeals.

Alamak, a colloquial cry used to precise shock or outrage in Singapore and Malaysia, additionally made the checklist.

In its newest replace, the OED mentioned: “Wouldn’t it’s helpful for English audio system to have a selected phrase for daylight dappling by leaves … Or a phrase for the motion of sitting exterior having fun with a beer?” The Norwegians have a phrase, utepils, for having a beer (pils) exterior (ute). And the Japanese phrase “komorebi” (木漏れ日) describes daylight dappling by leaves.

Individuals who communicate English alongside different languages fill lexical gaps by “borrowing the untranslatable phrase from one other language”. After they do that usually sufficient, the borrowed phrase “turns into a part of their vocabulary”, OED mentioned.

Many of the phrases added to the OED from Singapore and Malaysia are names of dishes, together with kaya toast – jam constructed from coconut milk, eggs, sugar and pandan leaves unfold on toasted bread; fish head curry – a Chinese language and South Indian dish; and steamboat – a thinly sliced meat andvegetable broth.

“All this speak of meals would possibly encourage one to get a takeaway, or to tapau,” OED mentioned. Tapau is one other new phrase originating from Chinese language languages, which means “to bundle, or wrap up, meals to remove”.

Different newly added Philippine phrases embrace videoke, the nation’s model of karaoke, which incorporates scoring, and salakot, a farmer’s hat.

Phrases and phrases from South Africa and Eire had been additionally a part of the replace.


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