“Body shaming, single-use plastic, withdrawal agreement and emergency accommodation included for the first time”

Foras na Gaeilge completed a significant update to the material on the New English-Irish Dictionary website on Thursday 10 January. As part of the ongoing work on the print version of the dictionary over 13,000 entries were edited in the last year. Entries were improved, errors corrected and additional sound and grammar files added to translations.

As well as the amendments above, over 100 new entries and senses were added to the dictionary. These were added based on current affairs, analysis of unsuccessful searches on the website, feedback and requests from users, and everyday use of Hiberno-English. Among the new entries and senses included are:

• Current affairs: backstop, burqa, shaming (body shaming), Eurosceptic, withdrawal agreement, homeless crisis, emergency accommodation, rough sleeper, homeless hub, single-use plastic, House of Commons, regulatory alignment, customs arrangement, hard border, soft border, frictionless economy, direct trade.
• Searches by and requests from users: craft beer, cutie, soakage, snowball fight, influencer, critical thinking, Dubai, carpool, sparkling water, pay gap, transformative.
• Hiberno-English: to make strange with sb, quare, scutter, hames, to be sore on sb, cat (the weather’s cat), not the sharpest tool in the shed.

There has been a consistent rise in the number of users of the dictionary since its launch in January 2013. In 2018, over 1.9 million users accessed foclóir.ie and the dictionary team is confident that they will reach 2 million users per year before long.

The New English-Irish Dictionary is the primary dictionary project being undertaken by Foras na Gaeilge at present. It is available free of charge online and as an app, and will be available in print form in 2020.

We regularly receive feedback from the public in relation to the dictionary, both the content and functionality. We’re very grateful to everyone who takes the time to provide us with such valuable feedback and have made many changes to the dictionary as a result. Contact us at aiseolas@focloir.ie.

Further Information:

Anna Davitt, Programme Manager: Communications, Marketing & Awareness, Foras na Gaeilge

Tel: 0035387 673 6175    

Email: adavitt@forasnagaeilge.ie