You might know Merriam-Webster as the Twitter account that posts about words a lot and offers up the occasional savage dunk. But did you know they also make dictionaries? Like, real ones, made out of paper and everything. No software updates or subscriptions required. You buy it and then you just… own it.
The downside is that, as language continues to grow and evolve, these static representations become outdated. Thus from time to time, Merriam-Webster has to put out new dictionaries. And for the first time in 22 years, they are giving a complete overhaul to their collegiate dictionary, which will now include over 5,000 news words. And the most important now-official new word isn’t a word at all. It’s two words. Cold brew.
According to NBC News, Merriam-Webster announced they will be taking “the rare step of fully revising and reimagining one of its most popular dictionaries.” Releasing in November, it will be the 12th edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary that first published in 1898 and will clock it at around five pounds, which makes it an objectively heavy tome.
Many of the newly recognized words are 21st century parlance, like farm-to-table, dad bod, hard pass, cancel culture, adulting, side-eye, rizz, doomscroll, etc. And of course, cold brew.
Cold brew has of course been around since before the 21st century, but it didn’t pick up cultural momentum until well after the 11th edition was published in 2003. What the official definition entails is unknown. Cold brew has yet to be recognized in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, so maybe this one is a hardback exclusive. So long as it helps clear up any confusion between cold brew and iced coffee, which are not at all the same thing and I’m tired of having to explain the difference.
So there you go. Cold brew is a word. Or words. A collection of words expressing a single idea. Will it be a noun or a verb? Guess you’ll just have to flip to the C’s and find out.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
