The rise of TikTok trends and social media slang has prompted Cambridge Dictionary to update its online edition with 6,000 fresh entries in the past year, including buzzwords like “skibidi,” “delulu,” and “tradwife.”
For those less immersed in digital culture, some of the sample sentences the UK-based dictionary provides may sound baffling.
Phrases such as “that wasn’t very skibidi rizz of you” or “As Gen Z say, I’ve entered my ‘delulu era?’” can appear like another language entirely.
According to Cambridge, skibidi is defined as “a word that can have different meanings such as ‘cool’ or ‘bad,’ or can be used with no real meaning as a joke.”
Meanwhile, delulu is described as a “play on the word delusional, means ‘believing things that are not real or true, usually because you choose to.’”
The term skibidi was popularized through Skibidi Toilet, a surreal YouTube animation series featuring human heads popping out of toilets.
Delulu, on the other hand, originated in K-pop fandom circles about a decade ago, used to mock overly obsessive fans, before evolving into a wider online shorthand for being “delusional.”
Its leap into mainstream culture was cemented in March, when Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese worked it into parliamentary remarks, joking, “they are delulu with no solulu,” after being dared by two podcast hosts.
“It’s not every day you get to see words like skibidi and delulu make their way into the Cambridge Dictionary,” noted Colin McIntosh, the dictionary’s lexical program manager. “We only add words where we think they’ll have staying power. Internet culture is changing the English language and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the Dictionary.”
Other recent additions include “tradwife,” short for “traditional wife,” often used by influencers who romanticize traditional gender roles, and “broligarchy,” a blend of bro and oligarchy referencing the group of tech executives present at Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The updates also reflect how existing words have gained new shades of meaning. “Snackable,” once tied only to food, is now used for short, easily consumed digital content.
Similarly, “red flag” and “green flag” have become shorthand for negative and positive traits in relationships, replacing their more literal uses.