New Words in the 2018 SCRABBLE Dictionary

Definition - showing a frown

Frowny has recently enjoyed a triumphant return into our dictionary. The word had first been defined by us in the 1864 edition of our unabridged dictionary (“Frowning; scowling. Rare”), but was removed for the 1961 edition. It was removed because not enough people were using it, and dictionaries usually require that a word retain some currency in a language in order to keep their valuable real estate. So do your part to keep frowny alive; use this word in your SCRABBLE games, your term papers, your telegraphed dispatches from the front, your tear-stained letters.

I had become the Norma Rae of frowny faces.
— Addam Schwartz, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 22 May 2018

Definition - a person who someone likes very much

Bestie is now suitable for play on the SCRABBLE board! For those of you who prefer to refer to your close friends by more acronymic means please be advised that BFF is not yet playable in the game. The reason that BFF is not yet eligible is not so much that it has no vowels, as there are plenty of accepted words that fall into this category, including cwm, tsktsk, brr, and brrr. No, BFF is not yet eligible for play because the proper blood sacrifices have not yet been offered up to the SCRABBLE gods.

So I'm out looking for a new best friend, and it's a lot harder than I thought it would be. You can't just run around the street grabbing people by the lapels and asking them, "You wanna be my bestie?”
— Morning Sentinel (Waterville, ME), 17 Aug. 2013

Dictionary - a small airplane used for business

For those of us who are not yet financially secure enough to afford a small business airplane of their own, we may now live vicariously by playing this word on the SCRABBLE board. Because playing a Z (10 points!) and a J (8 points!) in the same word is almost as good as being able to buy an expensive and unnecessary transportation device.

GD fell 3%+ today, underperforming a flattish market on a drop in the Gulfstream backlog that was in line with typical seasonality but below elevated bizjet expectations.
— Seth Seifman, J.P. Morgan Equities Research Reports, 26 Apr. 2018

Definition - gopik

One of the signs of a true SCRABBLE player is that they not only know a large number of words for the monetary currencies of the world, they also know the variant spellings (as well as all the words which have a Q that is not followed by a U). Qapik is a variant of gopik, which is defined as “a monetary subunit of the manat (Azerbaijan).” As many people have discovered, the ability to retain such knowledge in the SCRABBLE arena does not always translate to fame and fortune in the real world.

The price of egg has dropped by 15 qapik after President Aliyev gave some instructions at a meeting in Baku; video report.
— BBC Monitoring Central Asia, 11 Mar. 2011

Definition — used to express disgust

A thorough mastery of two-letter words is among the most important skills necessary in the creation of a successful and incomprehensible SCRABBLE board. The ability to add seemingly random letters to existing ones will allow a player to enjoy far greater latitude in placing their words on the board, and will annoy opponents who think that the game should be played with words they recognize. Ew joins another 106 two-letter words, which are aa, ab, ad, ae, ag, ah, ai, al, am, an, ar, as, at, aw, ax, ay, ba, be, bi, bo, by, da, de, do, ed, ef, eh, el, em, en, er, es, et, ex, fa, fe, gi, go, ha, he, hi, hm, ho, id, if, in, is, it, jo, ka, ki, la, li, lo, ma, me, mi, mm, mo, mu, my, na, ne, no, nu, od, oe, of, oh, oi, ok, om, on, op, or, os, ow, ox, oy, pa, pe, pi, po, qi, re, sh, si, so, ta, te, ti, to, uh, um, un, up, us, ut, we, wo, xi, xu, ya, ye, yo, and za.

Monty started growling, but everybody was too busy arguing to notice. "Ew! What's that smell?" Abbie exclaimed suddenly, wrinkling her nose. "It's worse than Dad's old socks!" She turned to the source of the stench and screamed.
— The Advertiser (Adelaide, S. Aus.), 4 Feb. 2015

Definition - to dance by shaking the buttocks while squatting

It has often been said that SCRABBLE and twerking go together like ... well, like SCRABBLE and twerking. The seeming incongruity of twerking on the SCRABBLE board aside (the dance tends to make the tiles shift a bit), this word is now playable. Twerks, twerked, and twerking are all acceptable forms of this word in competition; twerkings and twerkery, however, are not.

Every child dreads this day: sooner or later, your parents will come to you, innocently wide-eyed, to ask you about twerking. How you handle this difficult conversation is extremely important and could have a significant impact on the way your parents think about twerking for years to come.
— Teddy Wayne, The New York Times, 1 Sept. 2013

Definition - balls of cooked rice

Anyone who has played SCRABBLE more than a few times knows the value of knowing a number of vowel-rich words (such as epopoeia, a type of epic poem), for it is inevitable that at some point in every game you will find yourself with a rack that is awash in E, I, and O. Arancini is useful for such occasions when you find yourself with more A’s and I’s than you’d like to have. And if you find that you need to divest yourself of three A’s, we’ve also just added aquafaba (“the liquid that results when beans are cooked in water”) to the dictionary.

The Queens-born cook took his family recipe for arancini and modernized it, adding not only risotto, but basil aioli and tomato caramel.
— Jacob Osterhout, New York Daily News, 30 Sept. 2012

Definition - an overwhelming defeat

SCRABBLE is not a friendly game. Playing it with no tears or recriminations is akin to playing poker with no betting, or Monopoly with no sulking. In the true spirit of the game, you would do well to play beatdown at any opportunity you get, all the more so if you are at that moment leading your opponent.

The Knicks were battered and bruised--both on the court and off it--in a 117-89 beatdown delivered by the Eastern Conference-leading Indiana Pacers at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. It marked the seventh straight time the Knicks lost in Indianapolis.
— Wall Street Journal, 16 Jan. 2014