19 March 2007
The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary released a new crop of entries for the online OED on 15 March. Most of the new entries cover the range from Prakrit (the vernacular version of Sanskrit) to Prim (a clipping of Primitive Methodist). This range also contains the prefix pre- and a host of new pre- words are included. Perhaps the most notable of these is the airline jargon term pre-boarding, referring the custom of letting the disabled, those with infants, frequent flyers, and first class passengers to board the plane before the rest of the rabble.
In addition to the scheduled updating the Ps, as usual a number of significant new words were added from elsewhere in the alphabet. These include the Pig Latin ixnay, the exclamation ta-da, and from the world of computing the verb to virtualize and the noun wiki.
Also of note is that the editors have discovered that the verb to set no longer has the longest entry in the OED. It has been supplanted by the verb to make, which took the title back in June 2000 when it was updated. To set, however, may stage a comeback and could very well reclaim its position when the editors get to updating the Ss. Rounding out the top ten longest entries are, in order, to run, to take, to go, pre-, non-, over-, to stand, and red.
