How do you get a word in the dictionary?

Question

is there anyway you can get a word you made up in the dictionary? my word is "splendiferous" it means "wonderful, fabulous" yeah. please help me!

Answer 1

I have good news and bad news for you..

The good news is that 'splendiferous' is already in the dictionary. The bad news is that unless you were born about 600 years ago, somebody else beat you to the punch in terms of making up that word - it entered the English language in the mid 1400s.

In terms of your general question as to how to get a word into a dictionary, there is only one really simple way: use it. Dictionaries (at least the reputable ones) are descriptive devices and not prescriptive ones - that is, they describe the language as it is, and don't choose which words are good words and which ones arn't.

Because of that, the only way to get a word into the dictionary is to use it, and to get all of your friends (and all of their friends, and all of their friends' friends, etc...) to use it. In addition, because dictionaries are generally biased towards the written word, it helps if you have friends who are authors or journalists; generally a dictionary looks for a certain number of writen citations in popular sources before they include a word.

Answer 2

I don't believe there is a process by which you can submit a word to be accepted in the dictionary. While there is a committee that chooses what words go into a dictionary, words are chosen because of their popular usage and must have be used for a long period of time before it's considered.

Answer 3

yup, Splendiferous is taken girl.
glorious: having great beauty and splendor; "a glorious spring morning"; "a glorious sunset"; "splendid costumes"; "a kind of splendiferous native simplicity"

Answer 4

if you made it up, there is probably no way it's in the dictionary. look up the roots to cobble together a definition?

Answer 5

wikepedia

open an account and add the word

your done