LONDON -- Binge-watchers and dadbods, your life choices have been legitimised by Collins English Dictionary, which has included them in its Words of the Year list.
"Binge-watch" took the top spot in the list, with the wordsmiths saying that its use increased by 200% in 2014.
"Ghosting," "swipe" and "manspreading" are among the other picks. The 10 new words will go into the online dictionary, and if they stand the test of time, they could make it into the next print edition in 2018.
To make the decisions, lexicographers consult the Collins Corpus, a 4.5 billion-word database of language, which takes in many sources of spoken and written English.
Collins prepared cartoons and explanations for each of their picks. For example, the word "binge" -- such an important part of "binge-watch" -- was originally a Lincolnshire dialect word meaning "to soak." In the 19th century it came to mean that people who drank to excess were soaking their brains with alcohol.
For those of you keeping track at home, "manspreading" was added to Oxford Dictionaries online in August this year.
Here's the full list:
binge-watch (verb): to watch a large number of television programmes (especially all the shows from one series) in succession
clean eating (noun): following a diet that contains only natural foods, and is low in sugar, salt, and fat
contactless (adjective): referring to payments, smart cards, etc that utilize RFID (radio-frequency identity) technology and do not require a PIN or signature from the customer
Corbynomics (noun): the economic policies advocated by the UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
dadbod (noun): an untoned and slightly plump male physique, especially one considered attractive
ghosting (noun): ending a relationship by ignoring all communication from the other person
manspreading (noun): the act or an instance of a male passenger in a bus or train splaying his legs in a way that denies space to the passenger sitting next to him
shaming (noun): attempting to embarrass a person or group by drawing attention to their perceived offence, especially on social media
swipe (verb): to move a finger across a touchscreen on a mobile phone in order to approve (swipe right) or dismiss (swipe left) an image
transgender (adjective): of or relating to a person whose gender identity does not fully correspond to the sex assigned to them at birth