A Perfectly Cromulent Fake Word From ‘The Simpsons’ Is Now In The Dictionary

On Monday, the dictionary got embiggened.

Merriam-Webster announced that 850 words, each of which has “taken its own path in its own time to become part of our language,” have been added to the dictionary. They include “glamping” (“outdoor camping with amenities and comforts not usually used when camping”), “dumpster fire” (as in, “putting glamping in the dictionary is a dumpster fire idea”), and “mansplain” (to use it in a sentence: “Let me explain why putting glamping in the dictionary is a dumpster fire idea”). There’s also one perfectly cromulent word that was added.

“Embiggen” — defintion: “to make bigger or more expansive” — is now a real word that began as a fake word from The Simpsons. It first appeared in the season seven episode “Lisa the Iconoclast” in the short film Young Jebediah Springfield. “A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man,” the Springfield founder (who has no interest in marrying his cousins), tells his followers. When Edna Krabappel notes that she never heard that word before moving to Springfield, Miss Hoover replies, “I don’t know why. It’s a perfectly cromulent word.”

Craptacular is now waiting for its moment in the sun. Meanwhile, Webster’s still describes a wedding as “the process of removing weeds from one’s garden.”

(Via Merriam-Webster)