Word up, Scrabble players. Merriam-Webster has released the fifth edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary -- the first major update in almost a decade.
The new release is bolstered by an additional 5,000 new words that passed muster for inclusion, words that reflect the technology and urban lingo of current times.
One of the new entries, Geocache, was chosen for inclusion by fans participating in the Scrabble Word Showdown a few months ago. Players in North America will also garner points for spelling out Beatbox, Chillax, Frenemy, Hashtag, Joypad, Mixtape, Mojito, Ponzu, Selfie, Soju, Sudoku, Texter, Vodcast, Vlog, Yuzu and over 5,000 more.
"Language is constantly evolving and new words are added to Merriam-Webster dictionaries on an ongoing basis," said Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster. "Now thousands of those words can officially be played on the Scrabble game board, as long as they meet the Scrabble game's criteria for length and styling."
Readers of the new edition will find entries that list a brief description, assign a part-of-speech label and provide inflected forms for fast and simple word validation.
The new dictionary is endorsed by the North American Scrabble Players Association for recreational and scholastic use. The new words will be officially be declared fit to use in club and tournament play on Dec. 1, 2014.
"With thousands of new words, this edition will boost scores for players of all levels," said John Chew, co-president of NASPA. "Tell your opponent how your letters make you feel with Aiyee, Meh, Oof, or Yessiree, or show off your Gameplay by scoring 401 points for Quinzhee!"
The basic rules for the inclusion of new words in the Scrabble dictionary are simple; new words must be found in a standard dictionary and cannot be abbreviations, capitalized words, or words containing hyphens or apostrophes. All words must be between 2-8 letters in length.
The Fifth Edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary will be available in paperback, hardcover, and large print formats in the U.S. and Canada beginning Aug. 6. Later in August, the company will release digital versions for iOS, Android and Kindle. Access to the dictionary will also be available later this year in the digital versions of Scrabble from Electronic Arts, on Facebook, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android devices.
The paperback and hardcover versions are available online through Merriam-Webster's online store, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
