The queer slang term, Lewk, has officially been added to the Cambridge Dictionary, which defines it as a particular style, fashion, or outfit especially one that is unusual and impressive. Sample sentences provided after the definition include other common slang: Your lewk is giving Barbie; This girl knows how to serve lewks. Related This childrens book is a must for gay parents who want to teach kids about love & fashion The word was popularized by both social media and RuPauls Drag Race after originating in drag and queer subcultures. Internet culture is changing the English language and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the dictionary, Colin McIntosh, lexical program manager for the Cambridge Dictionary, told The Guardian, adding that only words with staying power are added. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Other words that were added this year include delulu, tradwife, and Skibidi. LGBTQ+ words have been increasingly added to dictionaries as queer culture continues to become more mainstream. In 2019, Merriam-Webster named the personal pronoun they as the word of the year. The same year, the publisher announced the addition of three new trans words: gender nonconforming, top surgery, and bottom surgery. The gender-neutral pronoun (along with themself) was also added.In 2022, the Oxford English Dictionary added a whopping 18 LGBTQ+ words, including gender-affirming, LGBTQ, gender expression, gender presentation, Enby, anti-gay, and TERF. In 2023, Dictionary.com added words like pinkwashing, queerbaiting, abrosexual, multisexual, polysexual, and the phrase gay marry as a verb. A few years earlier, it also added ace, biromantic, and deadname. It also replaced the words homosexual and homosexuality with gay, gay man, gay woman or gay sexual orientation, based on discussions with GLAAD and in accordance with American Psychological Association guidelines. Dictionary.comsaid it made these changes to avoid implying or suggesting that being gay or bi is a pathology.For example, we now define gayness as gay or lesbian sexual orientation or behavior compared to the outmoded gloss of homosexuality. These changes alone affect over 50 entries, they wrote in their update for September.The previously used terms homosexual and homosexuality originated as clinical language, and dictionaries have historically perceived such language as scientific and unbiased. But homosexual and homosexuality are now associated with pathology, mental illness, and criminality, and so imply that being gay a normal way of being is sick, diseased, or wrong. The website also changed the definition of words with the -sexual suffix, updating the phrasing of romantically or sexually attracted to to romantically, emotionally, or sexually attracted to.Not only do these revisions help eliminate heterosexual bias in language, they also help better convey the diversity and richness of and take Pride with a capital P in human sexual experience and identity,Dictionary.comexplained, also saying that they added a new entry for the word Pride that refers to events or recognition of LGBTQ+ people.Dictionary.com also declared woman its 2022 word of the year amidst the rise of the GOPs anti-trans agenda. Republicans spent the better part of that year trying (and failing) to prove that they could easily define what makes someone a woman. The website explained that the word continues to be a source of intense personal importance and societal debate and that it was inseparable from the story of 2022.Our selection ofwomanas our 2022 Word of the Year reflects how the intersection of gender, identity, and language dominates the current cultural conversation and shapes much of our work as a dictionary, the announcement continued, adding that at its highest point, searches for the word rose by over 1400%.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.