It could be argued that the internet is the best possible medium for dictionaries. For one thing, there’s unlimited space for definitions, idioms, and example sentences. Hyperlinks allow us to jump from one entry to another in a single click, connecting words in order to contrast meanings (like clergy from secular) or compare usages (like imply from infer) or learn more about the word we just looked up (like ritornello, “a short recurrent instrumental passage in a vocal composition,” from symphony). Almost as important as the definitions is the amount of information about usage that can be found in online dictionaries, like lengthy discussions about when to use nonplussed or how to know when less can mean fewer. Maybe the single biggest advantage is the ability to hear how words are pronounced—audio buttons are the purest use of an electronic reference work.
The promise of the internet, as we all know, was that information would be both easy to find and easy to share. Now, after two decades of social media and the “engagement” economy, we have also learned something else: the tool that democratized information has also normalized deception. We have a new lexicon of words for different kinds of lying, like fake news, gaslighting, catfishing, phishing, smishing, finsta (“fake Instagram account”), and deepfake—this last term referring to the strange phenomenon of not believing what we see with our own eyes. Malware, spyware, and ransomware are all defined in our dictionary in addition to these others.
And now there’s artificial intelligence, the turbocharged nextword-guessing machine that, like so many technologies before it, has become a promise and a threat and, to most of us, a bit of a mystery. Erin McKean, a lexicographer and expert on open-source computing, has said that the I in AI should be “imitation” and not “intelligence,” a helpful framing for me. AI will certainly be a great tool for research, but it doesn’t create knowledge. Large language model is also a new
entry in our dictionary, as is a new definition for slop: “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”
A short video distributed by Merriam-Webster to announce a new print edition, the Collegiate Dictionary, Twelfth Edition, plays on the idea of a “large language model” that is a heavy book with pages that you can turn with your fingers to research and browse. It seems to have struck a chord with the public—it’s been viewed more than 20 million times. Yes, there’s nostalgia for print, but something else is going on here. The contrast of a reference book that we can hold
in our hands with all of the deception of the virtual world makes this book the paradigm of authenticity. Something we can trust.
Follow Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large for Merriam-Webster, on X @PeterSokolowski.