A leading dictionary adds new words each year to accommodate new vocabulary and slang terms in regular use. Two terms added to the dictionary – metaverse and altcoins – should catch the attention of the cryptocurrency and Web3 sectors.

What Happened: Merriam-Websterthe oldest dictionary company in the US, announced the addition of 370 words to the dictionary for the month of September.

Terms included Dumbphone, Video Doorbell, Microgrid, Supply Chain, Gift Economy, Shrinkflation, Side Hustle, False Negative, False Positive, and Galentine’s Day. Added slang terms like yeet, janky, sus, pwn, MacGyver, FWIW, ICYMI, and adorable.

metaverse was also on the list for the latest update. The dictionary gives the term two definitions:
• Computing: a persistent virtual environment that allows access to and interoperability of multiple individual realities, each of the individual virtual environments that make up a metaverse.
• Cosmology: the hypothetical combination of all coexisting or sequential universes.

Another word added to the dictionary related to cryptocurrency: altcoin. The definition given by Merriam-Webster is “any of various cryptocurrencies that are considered alternatives to established cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin in particular”.

Use Case is another addition. The word can be used in the world of cryptocurrency and NFTs as investors and consumers wonder what a coin or collection does.

The new words follow two updates in 2021 announced in January and October with added words and phrases including Blank Check Company (SPAC), Dad Bod, ASMR, and Silver Fox.

Related link: What is the metaverse

Why it matters: The addition of metaverse and cryptocurrency related terms follows 2021 when NFT was added to many dictionaries and ranking as the Word of the Year for the Collins Dictionary.

The term metaverse has been used by many Web3 companies and is a commonly used term for many