Oxford Dictionary embraces cisgender, twerk, arre, yaar, fo shizzle

'Cisgender', 'arre', 'yaar', 'churidhar' and 'bhelpuri' are some of the surprise entries following 'meh' , 'twitterati', 'freegan' and 'fo shizzle' in the 500 new words announced by Oxford English Dictionary on 25 June.

Cis is to gender identity, what probably 'heterosexual', 'bisexual' and 'homosexual' is to sexual preference and narrows the field further down from a simple 'man' or 'woman' to one who belongs to a category, as acknowledged by those around, and at all times.

In short, the gender remains what it was at birth.

Twerking, popularised by singer Miley Cyrus at a 2013 MTV awards show, is described as dancing "in a sexually provocative manner, using thrusting movements of the bottom and hips while in a low, squatting stance."

Unlike other new entries, twerk is a re-entrant. It is believed to be a tweak given to 'twirk' a noun used in 1820, referring to a "twisting or jerking movement" or 'twitch.'

It emerged later in 1848 as 'twerk' and was popularly used by 1901.

'Meh' owes its entry to popular culture indicating a lack of enthusiasm popularised by the Simpsons and 'fo shizzle' is 'for sure'.

Hindi words like 'arre', 'yaar', 'churidar', 'bhelpuri' and 'dhaba' have also been picked up by Oxford, taking the total Indian words in the dictionary to 240.

With growing environmental awareness, words like 'voluntourism' and 'ecotown' have pushed their way into the lexicon too.

Going from vegan to 'freegan' we now have a "person who eats discarded food, typically collected from the refuse of shops or restaurants, for ethical or ecological reasons".