Overview

• Over the past year Cambridge Dictionary has incorporated more than 6,000 new words into its online edition to reflect emerging usage.
• New entries include “tradwife,” a term celebrating traditional gender roles on Instagram and TikTok, and “delulu,” shorthand for delusional belief.
• Editors say they select only words they expect to persist, monitoring usage patterns across platforms before adding entries.
• High-profile adoption—such as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s use of “delulu” in parliament—demonstrates how online slang crosses into formal discourse.
• The German Duden maintains a conservative standard, requiring multi-year, cross-genre evidence before including terms in its print and digital dictionaries.