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Petrichor, by the way, is a pleasant odor after a rainfall following a warm, dry period. Teraflop is a unit of measure for calculating the speed of a computer. Dumbphones are just that, mobile devices we used before the smartphone revolution. And ghost kitchens, which came into their own during the pandemic, are commercial spaces for hire.

Other additions: 鈥渃old brew,鈥� 鈥渇arm-to-table,鈥� 鈥渄ad bod,鈥� 鈥渉ard pass,鈥� 鈥渁dulting鈥� and 鈥渃ancel culture.鈥� There’s also 鈥渂east mode,鈥� 鈥渄ashcam,鈥� and 鈥渟ide-eye.鈥�

The new 鈥淐ollegiate鈥� also includes enhanced entries for some top lookups, and more than 20,000 new usage examples. All of the added words were

How did they make room for all that?

The company removed two sections of the 鈥淐ollegiate’s鈥� 11th edition that had sparse biographical and geographical entries to make room for the new content. Greg Barlow, Merriam-Webster’s president, exclusively told The Associated Press ahead of the announcement that people no longer use dictionaries to learn such things as the location of Kalamazoo or who Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was. For that, they reach for the internet.

(It鈥檚 a city in southwest Michigan, for the eternally curious, and he’s a Russian composer who died in 1908.)

Merriam-Webster also eliminated some obscure and antiquated words, including 鈥渆nwheel,鈥� meaning encircle.

鈥淲e wanted to make the 鈥楥ollegiate鈥� more useful, a better design, more interesting,鈥� Barlow said. 鈥淲e wanted it to be more rewarding to browse, more fun to look through, and to really be practical for research, but also a beautiful book.鈥�

What’s happening with dictionary sales in general?

The chunky, linen-cover 鈥淐ollegiate鈥� update weighs in at nearly 5 pounds. It comes as adult reference book sales, including dictionaries and atlases, have shown annual declines since 2022, according to Circana BookScan, which captures 85% of the print market. In the 12-month period ending Sept., 6, dictionary sales fell 9% compared with the same period prior.

Merriam-Webster, the country’s leading dictionary company, sells about 1.5 million of them a year. Most are regularly revised but not fully overhauled like the 鈥淐ollegiate,鈥� Barlow said. The company’s retail sales overall have generally held steady in the last few years, he said. Print sales account for a small fraction of the company鈥檚 revenue.

鈥淲hile the print dictionary is not at all important to the growth and profitability of this wonderful language company, it鈥檚 still our heart,鈥� Barlow said. 鈥淭here are people out there and we love books.鈥�

For dictionary sales overall, there’s a bit of sunshine at Barnes & Noble. The chain’s dictionary sales have gone up so far this year over the same period in 2024, said Kat Sarfas, marketing manager for nonfiction. She noted similar increases for such reference materials as

鈥淚 do think there is that nostalgia that people have to be able to pull a dictionary off the shelf and look up a word,鈥� Sarfas said. 鈥淭here’s a certain desire to have these kinds of reference materials at home. It may be something that people feel like, as educated people, we should own.鈥�

Dictionaries may be down but they aren’t dead yet

While Merriam-Webster’s 鈥淐ollegiate,鈥� originally focused on the needs of college students, is among top sellers in dictionaries for Barnes & Noble, its general-interest 鈥淭he Merriam-Webster Dictionary鈥� is more popular. It was last tweaked in 2022. A pocket version is also a strong seller, Sarfas said.

Death knells for print dictionaries have been ringing since the rise of the internet, said Grant Barrett, a lexicographer, former dictionary editor for Merriam-Webster and others, and co-host of public radio’s 鈥淎 Way with Words.鈥�

鈥淣ow we’re in this weird limbo where people want the dictionary but they don鈥檛 want to pay for it, because they鈥檙e used to getting things for free on the internet,鈥� he said.

Merriam-Webster’s website receives about a billion visits a year, making the company a word digital leader as well, Barlow said. Over the last 10 years, revenue overall has grown by nearly 500% on the strength of its online dictionary, thesaurus, mobile apps and word games.

The new 鈥淐ollegiate鈥� introduces curated word lists, such as words from the 1990s. And it has more word histories. Did you know 鈥渃alculate鈥� comes from the Latin for 鈥減ebble,鈥� because ancient Romans used little stones to do addition and subtraction?

And, for incredibly granular dictionary fans, the new 鈥淐ollegiate鈥� preserves lettered thumb notches 鈥� those little finger-size dents along the edges of reference book pages 鈥� to make browsing easier. The only printer doing the notches in the U.S. has closed since Merriam-Webster was last in need, so it had to go to India, Barlow said.

Why do print dictionaries still matter?

Print versions still matter in preserving cultures, as gifts, as a household utility, and for students under cellphone bans at school, among other reasons, said Sarfas, Barrett and other book pros.

鈥淭here are lots of communities that speak languages that have never been documented, and they may not have been documented because those languages might have been actively suppressed. I鈥檓 thinking about Indigenous communities across North America,鈥� said Lindsay Rose Russell, executive director of the Dictionary Society of North America.

鈥淗aving a print dictionary has all along sort of indicated the legitimacy of a language,鈥� said Russell, also an author who teaches English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Barrett said his show and its companion podcast receive a lot of letters from readers that lend insight into how they use dictionaries.

鈥淪ome people use the dictionary almost as a meditative resource where they just open it up and see what they find and kind of let their minds wander a little bit,鈥� he said.

Got a band in need of a name? Commodores’ trumpet player William King used a dictionary to find his, running his finger down a page, Russell noted.

鈥淲e lucked out,鈥� King told People magazine in 1978. 鈥淲e almost became 鈥楾he Commodes.鈥� 鈥�