--- title: Oxford Dictionary Adds 'Bestie,' 'Crap Shoot,' and 'Bathroom Break' description: The latest additions were announced on Thursday canonical: https://time.com/23817/oxford-english-dictionary-adds-bestie-crap-shoot-bathroom-break/ author: Katy Steinmetz article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-13T19:07:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:07:46.689Z og:title: 'Bestie' Finally Makes It Into the Oxford English Dictionary og:description: Along with a host of other interesting words og:url: https://time.com/23817/oxford-english-dictionary-adds-bestie-crap-shoot-bathroom-break/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4341ee0b02ef2987/69868554cd804d6d75cc9b71/best-friends.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: Best Friends og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Bestie' Finally Makes It Into the Oxford English Dictionary twitter:description: Along with a host of other interesting words twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4341ee0b02ef2987/69868554cd804d6d75cc9b71/best-friends.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Oxford English Dictionary Adds ‘Bestie,’ ‘Crap Shoot,’ ‘Bathroom Break’ > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Katy Steinmetz](https://time.com/author/katy-steinmetz/) ## Katy Steinmetz Mar 13, 2014 7:07 PM UTC  Digital Vision / Getty Images by [Katy Steinmetz](https://time.com/author/katy-steinmetz/) ## Katy Steinmetz Mar 13, 2014 7:07 PM UTC Four times a year, the Oxford English Dictionary lets down its drawbridge and invites a select few new words into the kingdom. On Thursday, roughly 900 new terms made their first appearance in the reference. That might sound like a lot, but one has to keep in mind that the dictionary covers _everything_, not just words average people use in daily conversation. Among the new entries, for example, are drool-inducing adjectives like _ethnopharmacologic_ and now-extinct creatures like the _scimitar-horned oryx_. (We’ll pour one out for you, Ory.) But there are also plenty of terms we know and love, that, for good or ill, reflect who English-speakers are and how we treat each other. The transitive verb, **_to toilet-paper_** **,** for example—meaning “to cover (a building, trees, etc.) with toilet paper, typically as a prank”—is now in the official record. As is the noun **_honey trap_**, a stratagem by which an attractive woman entices a weak and foolish man into revealing information. Anyone who peruses the [full list of the most recent additions](http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/recent-updates-to-the-oed/march-2014-update/new-words-list-march-2014/) will notice chunks of related words. There are, for example, nearly 30 words that contain _honey_. That’s because the editors of the OED are primarily [updating the dictionary](http://entertainment.time.com/2013/04/23/an-exit-interview-with-the-man-who-transformed-the-oxford-english-dictionary/) by reviewing important clusters of words—rather than plodding through from _A_ to _Z_—because, they reason, those are the words that people are most likely to look up. It’s worth noting that it’s much harder for a word to make the cut here than for one of the Oxford Dictionaries Online additions. The latter is meant to reflect current usage, which is why it [already contains](http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/22/lolz-ridic-and-mwhahaha-added-to-oxford-dictionaries-online/) quasi-words like _lolz_ and _mwahahaha_, while the OED aims to be a definitive historical catalog. Here is a selection of other terms that are now appearing in the OED for the first time: **bathroom break (n.):** a short period of time within the duration of an activity (often of a prescribed or limited duration) taken to use the toilet. **beatboxer (n.):** a performer who uses (amplified) vocal effects to imitate the sounds and rhythms of hip-hop music. **bestie (n.):** a person’s best friend; a very close friend. **bookaholic (n.):** a habitual and prolific reader; a compulsive book buyer. **crap shoot (n.)**: a situation or undertaking regarded as uncertain, risky, or unpredictable. **c\*ntish (adj., coarse slang):** nasty, highly unpleasant; extremely annoying. **dead white male (n.):** a dead Caucasian male writer, philosopher, etc., whose pre-eminence is challenged as disproportionate to his cultural significance, and attributed to a historical bias towards his gender and ethnic group. **DIYer (n.):** A person who engages in do-it-yourself activities; an amateur (in construction, repair, etc.). **do-over (n.):** an instance or chance of doing something for a second or further time, after an unsuccessful or unsatisfactory first attempt. **honky-tonker (n.):** a person who owns, works in, or frequents a cheap, sleazy bar or nightclub, typically one where country music is played. **scissor-kick (v):** to perform a kick which involve a scissor-like motion of the legs, as in swimming or soccer. **wackadoodle (adj.):** crazy, mad; eccentric. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/23817/oxford-english-dictionary-adds-bestie-crap-shoot-bathroom-break/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/23817/oxford-english-dictionary-adds-bestie-crap-shoot-bathroom-break/"},"headline":"Oxford English Dictionary Adds ‘Bestie,’ ‘Crap Shoot,’ ‘Bathroom Break’","datePublished":"2014-03-13T19:07:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:07:46.689Z","description":"There are about 900 new additions to the Oxford English Dictionary, announced this week, including first-timers like 'bathroom break,' 'beatboxer,' 'DIYer,' 'scissor-kick' and— wait for it —'scimitar-horned oryx'","url":"https://time.com/23817/oxford-english-dictionary-adds-bestie-crap-shoot-bathroom-break/","keywords":["Newsfeed","language","Dictionary","Oxford"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4341ee0b02ef2987/69868554cd804d6d75cc9b71/best-friends.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katy Steinmetz","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/katy-steinmetz/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4341ee0b02ef2987/69868554cd804d6d75cc9b71/best-friends.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Best Friends","caption":"","creditText":"Digital Vision / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/23817/oxford-english-dictionary-adds-bestie-crap-shoot-bathroom-break/","name":"Oxford English Dictionary Adds ‘Bestie,’ ‘Crap Shoot,’ ‘Bathroom Break’"}}]}] ```