Scrabble Wordlist Adds 6,500 New Words Including “EMOJI” and “SEXTING”

Over 6,500 new words were added to the Collins Official Scrabble Wordlist on Thursday, including “twerking” and “hashtag.”

“LOLZ” And “NEWB” Added To Scrabble Dictionary

The Collins Official Scrabble Wordlist announced the addition of the new words in a blog post on Thursday, May 21, writing that the new vocabulary was “influenced by all parts of life including social media, slang, technology and food, plus English from around the world.”

New words include “LOLZ,” a derivative of ‘LOL,’ the shorthand meaning “laugh out loud,” which is worth 13 Scrabble points. Other abbreviated slang, such as “OBVS” and “Newb” have been added – both are worth 9 Scrabble points. The Collins Official Scrabble Wordlist has also added common misspellings, including “WUZ” (meaning ‘was’ and worth 15 points) and “THANX” (meaning ‘thanks’ and worth 15 points).

The new Scrabble words also reflect modern technology. “FACETIME”, the Apple application used to video chat, has been added to the Scrabble Dictionary (worth 15 points), as has the social phenomenon of “SEXTING” (worth 15 points.) “EMOJI” has also been added to the list, for a value of 14 points, and “HACTIVIST” joins the tech-friendly additions for 22 points.

Some of the new additions are far less strange. For example, Scrabble has official deemed “ONSIE” a playable word (worth 6 points), despite it being a common word for quite some time.

The Collins Scrabble Word List is used in official Scrabble tournaments around the world and a complete list of new words is available in a Collins Dictionary.

Article by Olivia Truffaut-Wong

Olivia Truffaut-Wong was born and raised in Berkeley, California, where she developed her love of all things entertainment. After moving to New York City to earn her degree in Film Studies, she stayed on the East Coast to follow her passion and become an entertainment writer. She lives on a diet of television, movies and food.