OUP Digest: New words from around the world in the OED September 2025 update

In its September update last year, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) took a significant stride in tracking the dynamic growth of English vocabulary worldwide by publishing the first of a new series of regular quarterly updates for World Englishes, which included new and revised entries for words from the Caribbean, East Africa, New Zealand, and Wales. Since then, the OED has released three further updates, all featuring a colourful assortment of distinctive words and phrases used by English speakers across the globe.

In this year’s September update we go back to where our journey started as we present a new batch of Caribbean, East African, New Zealand, and Welsh additions and revisions to the dictionary, now also joined by recent inclusions from the Isle of Man.

Beeping and benching: New words from East Africa

Uglish (earliest seen in 2000) is an informal variety of English spoken in Uganda, incorporating elements of Luganda and other Ugandan languages. English is an official language in this landlocked East African nation of nearly 50 million people, and a few of the recently added words to the OED show idiosyncratic use of English words particular to this region.

The verb bench (2000) and its noun form benching (2001) are used colloquially in Ugandan English to refer to a person, especially a man, flirting or engaging in a casual sexual or romantic relationship with another person, especially a woman. To detooth someone or something is to extract a person or animal’s tooth or to make (someone or something) toothless, in both the literal and figurative sense. Earliest seen in 1888, detooth took on a completely different meaning in Uganda over a hundred years later, modelled after the Luganda verb (o)kukuula: to provide (someone) with companionship or sexual favours in exchange for money or luxury items; put more simply, to gold-dig.

A vacist (2004) is a student who has completed a level of education and is on holiday from school while waiting to receive the results of the national examinations and advance to a higher level. Vacists in Uganda usually keep themselves busy by applying to university, looking for a job, or learning new skills.

From the world of music, we have added electro Acholi (2017), a style of dance music characterized by the use of a synthesized backing track and electronically created beat combined with elements from the traditional music of Northern Uganda, particularly of the Acholi people. One of the traditional instruments of the Acholi is the lukeme (1953), a small handheld musical instrument consisting of a series of wooden or metal keys attached to a resonator, with one end of each key free to be plucked with the thumb and forefingers.

This update also features words used elsewhere in East Africa or throughout the whole region, such as Umuganda and beep. In East Africa (and also in West Africa), to beep (2007) someone is not to send them a message to their beeper or even to honk your car horn at them—it is to call their mobile phone and hang up immediately, typically as a request for a call back. In Rwanda, Umuganda (1977), a borrowing from the Kinyarwanda language, refers to unpaid work carried out by an individual for the benefit of the community, typically involving cleaning up public areas or working in construction or agriculture, as well as to an instance of undertaking such work. It is also what Rwandans call the last Saturday of every month on which they are required by law to perform this community service.

Carry-go-bring-come: New words from the Caribbean

Caribbean cuisine, with its bold tropical flavours and diverse influences, features very prominently in this current update. A bulla is a small, round, flat cake from Jamaica, made with flour, molasses, brown sugar, and various spices and flavourings such as ginger, nutmeg, coconut, and pineapple. First recorded in English in 1940, it comes from the Spanish word for a bread roll,?bollo.? In Trinidad and Tobago, a buss up shut (1988) is fried unleavened bread with a flaky texture, similar to paratha or roti, served torn into pieces. The name represents the Caribbean pronunciation of?bust-up shirt,?apparently because of the flaky bread’s resemblance to rags of fabric.

Pholourie is an Indo-Caribbean dish consisting of fried balls of dough made from flour, ground split peas, and various spices, usually served with chutney and eaten as a snack. A borrowing from a language of India (Hindi, for instance, has phulaur?, while Bengali has phuluri) and ultimately reflecting an unattested Prakrit compound with the sense ‘puffed cake’, the OED records 11 other possible spellings, including pelauri, pulouree, and phulouri. Our first quotation for this wordcomes from the 1936 song Bargee Pelauri by the Trinidadian calypso singer and composer Rafael de Leon, known by his stage name ‘The Lion’ or ‘Roaring Lion’, with the following lyrics:

You need no ham nor biscuit nor bread

But there are ways that they can be easily fed…

On bargee pelauri

Dhalpat and dalpouri.

Cou-cou (1843) is a Caribbean dish made from a mixture of cornmeal, okra, and butter stirred together until firm, typically shaped into a ball and served as an accompaniment to other dishes, especially steamed or fried fish;?a cou-cou stick (1985) is a flat wooden paddle that is used to stir it. Saltfish is a word dating as far back as 1558, referring generally to fish that has been salted and dried for food, but now?used more specifically to refer to?salted and dried cod or similar white fish that is widely consumed in the Caribbean.

Beyond the culinary sphere, this batch also includes other Caribbean terms that reflect the region’s cultural and linguistic diversity. In Trinidad and Tobago, a bobolee (1939) is a stuffed and dressed-up effigy, originally of Judas Iscariot but now of any hated or controversial figure, paraded through the streets and set up as a target for beating on Good Friday. The word is of uncertain origin but is perhaps from a language of West Africa. A few decades later, in the 1970s, it developed an additional figurative sense: a person who is easily deceived or taken advantage of; a dupe, a scapegoat. Also possibly after an expression in an African language is the phrase to cry long water (out of one’s eye), meaning ‘to cry copiously or insincerely’. Another word from the 1970s, broughtupsy (1974), refers to good manners and courteous behaviour resulting from a good upbringing.

Carry-go-bring-come (1825) is gossip, or a person who spreads it. This noun, made up of four high-frequency verbs strung together, is derived from Caribbean English phrases like to bring (something) and come, to bring (something) come, and to carry (something) come, all meaning ‘to bring (something) back’ or ‘to get (something) and bring it’, with ‘news’ as the implied object. These verb phrases reflect the syntax of serial verb constructions found in several languages of West Africa. Some Caribbean nations have their own versions of this local term for gossip, like Saint Vincent, where they say bring-and-carry. In Trinidad and Tobago, bring-back-carry-come is the usual term, whereas in the British Virgin Islands, it’s bring-come-and-carry-go.

Sweet as: New words from New Zealand

The OED September update comprises a variety of colloquial expressions characteristic of New Zealand?English, such as sweet as (1985), which functions as a general term of approval applied to anything considered to be excellent or fantastic. It is also used frequently as an interjection expressing emphatic affirmation, agreement, or appreciation.

Also in this batch are other informal expressions involving the word rark. As a transitive verb combined with up (1997), it means to provoke or annoy, and also to rebuke or scold, as in this quotation from New Zealand children’s author and poet Ben Brown’s book A Fish in the Swim of the World: ‘Her nana… kept her safe and…rarked up anyone who ever whispered ill of my mother’s fate’. The corresponding noun, rark up (1995) means a rebuke or a scolding, as well as an argument or row. The related phrase to rark it up means to behave in an exaggerated or extravagant manner, especially in a way that causes trouble or disturbance.

To climb into (someone) (1900) is to attack (a person) physically or verbally, while to deal to (someone) (1979) is to inflict violence on (a person), to beat up, or to kill. The latter expression can also be used in a figurative sense, often in sporting contexts.

The verb lux (1980), used informally, means to clean (a floor, room, etc.) with a vacuum cleaner, originally specifically one made by the Electrolux company, from whose name the word is derived. Moving away from colloquial New Zealand English, a trundler can mean either a cart for carrying golf clubs (1955) or a shopping trolley or wheeled shopping bag (1958).

This New Zealand update additionally features words originating in te reo M?ori or used chiefly in M?ori contexts: the adjective hap? (1948), in the sense ‘pregnant’; the greeting m?rena (1969), meaning ‘good morning’, a borrowing from M?ori that itself was borrowed from the English word morning; and cuzzy bro (1991),a term for a family member or close friend, often used as a familiar form of address, especially to a man.

Having a cooish: New words from the Isle of Man

The Isle of Man is a self-governing British Crown dependency where English is the dominant language, but Manx Gaelic, an endangered Celtic language, is also officially recognized and is undergoing revitalization. The influence of Manx Gaelic on Manx English can be seen in the loan words that have been added to the OED as part of this update.

A chiollagh (1861) is a tall, wide fireplace with an open hearth, of the type found in traditional Manx buildings. The word comes from the Manx word?çhiollagh, from Early Irish?tellach or?tenlach, from teine?‘fire’, combined with an element of uncertain origin, perhaps either a noun related to?Welsh?lle?‘place’ or a derivative suffix. A thie veg (1875) is a toilet or lavatory, especially one which is external to a main building. ?In Manx,?thie veg literally mean ‘small house’—thie?‘house’ is from Early Irish?teg- or tech, while veg is the inflected form of?beg?‘small’, from early Irish?bec.

A cooish (1878) is a friendly conversation or chat. The OED entry cites the following lines from a 1908 poem by the Manx poet and playwright Cushag (the pen name of Josephine Kermode):

Johnny an’ me was sweethearts

Many a year gone by,

Stannin’ aroun’ in the haggart,

An’ havin’ a?cooish?on the sly.

This use of cooish in Manx English is borrowed from a specific use of?cooish in Manx in the sense?‘cause, matter, or business’, from the Early Irish word?cúis ‘cause, matter, (legal) controversy’. The word is now?rarely used?except with reference to Manx culture or to gatherings of people of Manx heritage, as in this social media post from 2024: ‘Thank you, to everyone who celebrated #TynwaldDay yesterday, wherever you are…& especially to all who dropped into Culture Vannin for a skeet & a?cooish’.

In a poody: New words from Wales

In an episode of the BBC competition programme Race Across the World, two of the show’s contestants, Sioned Cray and Fin Gough, were astonished when a producer interviewing them expressed confusion at their use of the word poody. The young couple from the Welsh village of Nantgaredig were amazed that another English speaker could be so unfamiliar with a word they heard all the time in Wales. The clip of this interaction, which was widely shared online, shows a very common experience—sometimes we need to go outside of our own linguistic circle to realize that some words that we thought were universally understood are actually unique to the language variety that we speak.

Fortunately for those who don’t speak Welsh English who may also be unaware of its meaning, poody has now made it into the pages of the OED. It is recorded earliest in the dictionary as an intransitive verb (1986), used colloquially with the meaning ‘to have a fit of sullen or petulant ill temper; to sulk’. It is another example of a reborrowing—a word that has been borrowed from English into another language and then borrowed back into English. Poody comes from the Welsh?pwdu?‘to sulk’, which itself comes from the English word pout combined with the Welsh verb-forming suffix?-u. In?Welsh?orthography,?w?represents a high back rounded vowel, while?u?represents a high unrounded vowel. The later noun form (1994), referring to a fit of sullen or petulant ill temper or a childish sulk, is now used chiefly in the phrases in a poody?and?to have a poody.

Also forming part of this update are distinctively Welsh uses of English words. If a Welsh person advises you to wrap up warm because it’s?nobbling (1998), then they are letting you know that it’s very cold outside. Scram is an 18^th and 19^th-century northern English verb meaning ‘to scrape, rake, or pull together with the hands’. This sense is now obsolete, but the verb survives in Welsh English in the sense ‘to scratch, especially with claws or fingernails’ (1851), along with a noun use (1879): a scratch, especially one made with claws or fingernails.

Additional loan words from Welsh in this update include various greetings and polite expressions. From the 19^th century we have diolch (1856) ‘thank you’ and nos da (1862) ‘good night’, and from the 20^th century we have croeso (1942) ‘welcome’, and shwmae, (1926) ‘hello, hi’. Shwmae comes from the Welsh siwmae or s’ma’i, colloquial contractions of the greeting si?d mae hi or sut mae hi, with the literal meaning ‘how is it?’. This phrase has variable pronunciation in current Welsh: the forms si?t, si?d of the interrogative ‘how’ are typically used in South Wales, pronounced with initial /?/, while the forms sut, sud are more commonly used in North Wales, pronounced with initial /s/. This difference is reflected in the spelling and pronunciation of shwmae in Welsh and Welsh English: those from South Wales write shwmae, sh’mae, or siwmae and say /???mai/ or /???mai/), while those from North Wales write su’mae and say /s??mai/ or /s??mai/, showing the fascinating variation that can exist even within a single variety of English.

Special thanks to the OED’s consultants for lending their expertise to the dictionary’s World English coverage this quarter: Dr Jeannette Allsopp for Caribbean English, Ms Florence Waeni for East African English, Dr Bebwa Isingoma for Ugandan English, Prof John Macalister for New Zealand English, Dr Kelvin Corlett for Manx English, and Dr Robert Penhallurick for Welsh English.

Full list of World English additions in the OED September 2025 update

Caribbean English

New words

Revised words

East African English

New words

Revised words

Ugandan English

New Zealand English

Manx English

Welsh English

New words

Revised words

Author: Danica Salazar, OED Executive Editor

https://www.oed.com/discover/new-words-from-around-the-world-in-the-oed-september-2025-update/?tl=true