“Gay Marry” Is Now a Verb Thanks to Dictionary.com’s Latest Update

The dictionary just got a bunch of new words, and many of them are gloriously gay.

Dictionary.com released its seasonal batch of new words on Tuesday. The website updates its lexicon regularly, with the previous update adding, for example, “queerbaiting.” As Dictionary.com explains, the new additions “represent the always-evolving nature of English,” which is why “nepo baby” and “Big Pharma” (perhaps unfortunately) made the cut.

That’s also why Dictionary.com’s lexicographers made a dictionary-wide change for this update, working to replace binary pronouns in various definitions. Rather than saying “his or her,” many such instances have been replaced with “their,” or have been rewritten to remove pronouns altogether. For example, the old definition of “folk singer” was “a singer who specializes in folk songs, usually providing his or her own accompaniment on a guitar;” the new definition reads “providing their own accompaniment on a guitar.”

Dictionary.com lexicographer K.E. Callaway wrote in the website’s update post that the change was made for inclusivity and usage.

“On the inclusivity side, ‘his or her does’ not include people who use other pronouns,” Callaway wrote. “In terms of usage, ‘they’ is simply much more common as a generic pronoun than he or she, including in spoken and all but the most formal types of written English. In fact, this has been the case for decades (even though people rarely notice it in speech). By making this change, we have made our entries more similar to how people actually speak and write, hopefully making the entries more natural-sounding — and thus more accessible to readers.”

As far as new terms go, Dictionary.com added “gay marry” as a verb, which of course means to marry a person of the same gender. “Stealth,” the term used to refer to trans people who pass as cisgender full-time without revealing that they’re trans, was also included in this round of updates.

Dictionary.com also added a handful of definitions for various sexual orientations and gender identities. “Amalgagender,” for one, refers to someone whose gender identity is informed by the fact that they are intersex. Also included are “autosexual” and “autoromantic,” which refer to people whose primary sexual/romantic attraction is directed toward themselves. Lastly, “polysexual” and “polyromantic” have been added. Not to be confused with polyamorous, these terms refer to people who are, respectively, sexually or romantically attracted to people of multiple genders, but not necessarily to people of all genders.

While LGBTQ+ terminology does not need institutional recognition in order to be valid, it is undoubtedly a good thing that sources like Dictionary.com understand the importance of these terms, especially when right-wingers so often treat queer and trans identities as newly-invented fads.

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