From “Beast Mode” to “Teraflop”: 10 New Words Merriam-Webster Just Added

Move over, Shakespeare—our dictionaries are catching up with TikTok, memes, and modern life.

Merriam-Webster has dropped a massive update, adding more than 5,000 new terms to the “Collegiate” dictionary. Translation? The words we’ve all been using for years in group chats are now officially legit.

Here are some highlights (with a few examples of how Canadians might actually use them):

1. Beast Mode

Definition: An extremely aggressive or energetic style or manner someone adopts temporarily to overpower an opponent.
Example: He went full beast mode on the Timbits at the office meeting.

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2. Dad Bod

Definition: A physique typical of an average father, slightly overweight, not extremely muscular.
Example: He had a dad bod before he even had kids—just call it a pre-dad bod.

“The national sport of Canada? Rocking the dad bod at the cottage.”

3. Dumbphone

Definition: A cellphone without advanced software features—basically, pre-iPhone tech.
Example: Want to really disconnect?

Swap your smartphone for a dumbphone and suddenly your only app is “Snake.”

4. Farm-to-Table

Definition: Food sold or distributed directly from farm to consumer.
Example: Sounds fancy, but in Canada, we just call it “buying corn out of a truck on Highway 11.”

5. Hard Pass

Definition: A firm refusal.
Example: Egg salad that’s been in the sun since noon? Hard pass, Karen.

“Hard pass = trying to parallel park downtown Barrie on a Saturday.”

6. Love Language

Definition: A person’s characteristic way of showing love or care.
Example: His love language is making poutine at 2 a.m.—and honestly, that’s marriage material.

7. Side-Eye

Definition: A sidelong look of scorn, suspicion, or disapproval.
Example: She gave him side-eye for putting ketchup on Kraft Dinner. Fair.

8. Rage Quit

Definition: To abruptly stop playing a game (or activity) out of frustration.
Example: I rage-quit Monopoly after landing on Boardwalk with hotels for the third time.

9. Teraflop

Definition: A unit of computing speed equal to one trillion floating-point operations per second.
Example: My kid’s gaming PC runs at 12 teraflops, and I still can’t get my printer to connect to Wi-Fi.

10. Snackable

Definition: Easy to consume in small portions—usually used for media.
Example: Reels, TikToks, and shorts are snackable content. So are ketchup chips, but one of those is way better.

The Bottom Line

Merriam-Webster is basically just saying: “Fine, we’ll make it official—you win, internet.” Next up, we’re waiting on “hangry,” “Canadiano,” and “loonie logic” to finally make the cut.