Polyamory, cachopo or eurofan: these are the new words that enter the RAE

“New normal”, “bot”, “cachopo”, “vaccinology”, “transgender” or “polyamory” are some of the novelties that from this Thursday appear in the digital version of the Dictionary of the Spanish Language (DLE) that has presented the Royal Spanish Academy, new words that define the year that ends.

A total of 3,836 modifications this year includes the last annual update of the DLE, the fifth consecutive held by the RAE and the Association of the Academies of the Spanish Language (Asale), and presented at a press conference by the director of the RAE, Santiago Muñoz Machado, and the academic Paz Battaner.

The novelties consist both in the addition of new terms and in amendments and new meanings of words that already appeared in the Dictionary. Many of them reflect the growing digitization of society, such as “cryptocurrency”, “cybercrime” or “webinar” or the influence of the pandemic such as “mask”, “swab”, “nasobuco”, “social bubble” or “new normal”.

Battaner has also drawn attention to the news of gender and sexuality, “issues that are present almost daily in the newspapers.” It is the case of ‘bishop’, a decision that has been made “since in some churches, like the protestants, bishops have been ordaining for a long time. “

Also with ‘cisgender’, “person who feels identified with their anatomical sex”; or ‘transgender’, “the person who does not feel identified with his anatomical sex”; or even with ‘polyamory’, “the erotic and stable relationship between several people with the consent of all of them.”

The dictionary also includes new terms such as ‘eurofan’, “the fan of the Eurovision Song Contest and everything related to it”; or the ‘top blanket’, which comes in after several years with the meaning of “illegal peddling of generally counterfeit or imitation products, displayed on the ground on a blanket or something similar.”