Merriam-Webster Unabridged

MERRIAM-WEBSTER UNABRIDGED contains copyrighted material, trademarks, and other proprietary information.

MERRIAM-WEBSTER UNABRIDGED (www.Merriam-WebsterUnabridged.com) copyright © 2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. Included within Merriam-Webster Unabridged are:

Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged copyright © 2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Collegiate Dictionary copyright © 2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Collegiate Thesaurus copyright © 2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Collegiate Encyclopedia copyright © 2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Medical Dictionary copyright © 2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Spanish-English Dictionary copyright © 2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

French-English Dictionary copyright © 2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster's Style Guide copyright © 2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Word of the Day copyright © 1995-2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition copyright © 2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus copyright © 1988 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Encyclopedia copyright © 2000 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster's Medical Desk Dictionary copyright © 2005 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster's Spanish-English Dictionary copyright © 1998 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster's French-English Dictionary copyright © 2000 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster's Pocket Guide to Punctuation, Second Edition copyright © 2001 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

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Merriam Webster word of the year

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — English-language dictionary Merriam-Webster said Wednesday that an expression popular with people that play online computer games was voted its word of the year for 2007.

The word "w00t," spelled using the number zero in place of the letter "o," placed first in a Top Ten list based on votes by visitors to Merriam-Webster's website.

The word is described as an exclamation "expressing joy, possibly after a triumph or for no reason at all" and is similar to the word "yay."

An example given by the dictionary is "w00t! I won the contest."

The word is also considered an acronym in the online gaming world for "We owned the other team," according to US-based Merriam-Webster.

Merriam-Webster said "w00t" hasn't made it into the dictionary but being chosen as word of the year "just might improve its chances."

The word is part of computer hacker vernacular referred to as "l33t," or "elite," speak used in competitive online computer game forums.

The customized language combines letters and numbers used in their stead, such as a number three for the letter "E" or a number four for the letter "A."

Second-place in the word-of-the-year contest went to "facebook," making an unofficial verb of the name of the popular social networking website.

The meaning given to "facebook" is to post a picture, party news or other information to profile pages at the website.

Also finishing in the top ten of the competition were yet-to-be-sanctioned words "blamestorm" and "sardoodledom," according to Merriam-Webster.

A blamestorm is a verb described as a group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project botched and whose fault it was.

Sardoodledom is derived from English playwright George B. Shaw's criticism of French peer Victorien Sardou and is used to mean contrived plots or stereotypical characters in dramatic works.

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Merriam Webster's Word of the Year for 2007

Voters at Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2007 poll have chosen "w00t" as 2007's most iconic word. M-W says that the word is a gamer's acronym for "we own the other team," but I'm inclined to think that that's a backronym, a back-formed acronym created to explain a word already in use.

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Merriam Webster

Merriam–Webster, which was originally the G. & C. Merriam Company that are descendants of of Springfield, Massachusetts, is an American company that publishes reference books, especially dictionariesNoah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Merriam–Webster is a subsidiary of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

In 1843, after Noah Webster's death, George and Charles Merriam secured publishing and revision rights to the 1840 edition of the dictionary. They published a modest revision in 1847, and a second update with illustrations in 1859. In 1864, Merriam published a much expanded edition, largely overhauling Noah Webster's work, yet retaining Webster's title, "An American Dictionary". This began a series of revisions known as "Unabridged", which became increasingly more "Merriam" than "Webster".

With the edition of 1890, the dictionary was retitled to "Webster's International". The vocabulary was vastly expanded in "Webster's New International" editions of 1909 and 1934, totaling over half a million words, and retrospectively called "Webster's Second International". Merriam overhauled the dictionary again with the 1961 "Webster's Third New International" under the direction of Philip B. Gove, making changes which sparked public controversy. (For more details on these dictionaries, see Webster's Dictionary.)

The "Collegiate Dictionary" series was initiated in 1898. Since the 1940s, the company has added many specialized dictionaries, language aides, and other references to its repertoire.

The G. & C. Merriam Company lost its right to exclusive use of the name "Webster" after a series of lawsuits placed it in public domain. Its name was changed to Merriam–Webster Inc. with the publication of Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary in 1983. The company has been a subsidiary of Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. since 1964.

The Merriam–Webster company once used a unique set of phonetic symbols in their dictionaries which permitted people from various parts of the US to learn how to pronounce new words as others who spoke with the same accent or dialect did. But Unicode did not specify room for these characters in their list. And to enable a variety of computer systems to access the pronunciation, the online services of Merriam–Webster specify a less-specific use of ASCII characters, which should not be confused with the former print fonts.

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