Among the new features that the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) dictionary incorporates since this Tuesday includes the word ‘dana’. It is an acronym for “depression at high levels of the atmosphere” and this addition to the dictionary comes after the devastating damage that last October 29 caused more than 220 deaths in the Valencian Community and Castilla-La Mancha. Academics, however, assure that the process of incorporating ‘dana’ into the dictionary has followed the usual steps – even with some delay – and that the deadlines have not been accelerated to keep up with current events.
The RAE defines ‘dana’ as “depression at high levels of the atmosphere, which, isolated from the general atmospheric circulation, moves independently and can produce major disturbances with very intense precipitation.” Furthermore, the meaning of ‘cold drop’ is modified to explain its similarities and differences with danas. Academics recommend writing it in lowercase, despite coming from an acronym, as has happened with terms like ‘AIDS’ or ‘covid’.
Many of this year’s additions come from the scientific, health and technological fields, such as ‘aerothermal’, ‘micellar’, ‘developer’, ‘scalable’ or ‘driver’. The meaning of ‘organic’ also enters the dictionary as it comes from the Anglo-Saxon world, in reference to organic foods. Among many other words, ‘spoiler’, ‘serum’ and ‘teleworking’ are also incorporated, as are the complex forms “health center”, “mobile unit” or “comfort zone”.
From the world of gastronomy come a variety of words such as ‘taboule’, ‘fumé’, ‘wasabi’, ‘frapé’, ‘umami’, ‘barista’… In the field of sports, voices such as bicicross, capoeira, curling, drive, fitness or full contact. In total 4,074 modifications have been introduced: variations, additions of articles, amendments, deletions and corrections.
The term serum is defined as “more or less dense liquid, with a repairing, revitalizing, moisturizing effect, etc., used as a cosmetic.” Teleworking, as “work that is performed remotely using telecommunications networks.” Spoiler, in addition to a type of spoiler on automobiles, is defined as “revelation of important details of the plot or outcome of a work of fiction, which reduces or nullifies the interest of those who do not yet know them.” Umami comes in as an adjective: “Said of a flavor: Intense and tasty, especially due to the glutamate present in some foods, such as soy sauce or aged cheese.” Check here, in PDF, all the new additions to the dictionary.
‘Tweet’ and ‘tweet’ resist, although Twitter no longer exists
Although the social network Twitter no longer exists since 2023, the RAE maintains the words ‘tweet’ and ‘tweet’ in the dictionary. The latter defines it as “a digital message that is sent through the social network Twitter and that cannot exceed a limited number of characters”, a definition that is clearly obsolete.
The presentation of the new features of the dictionary was carried out by the director of the RAE, Santiago Muñoz Machado, flanked by the person in charge of the Institute of Lexicography, Elena Zamora, and the academic Dolores Corbella, who presented the new developments in American lexis. “The dictionary must be up to date and reflect the common heritage of more than 600 million speakers,” said Corbella.
In this desire to stay up to date, Muñoz Machado has announced that this will be the last revision, the eighth, of the 23rd edition of the dictionary, and that they will focus all their efforts from now on on the new edition, the 24th, which will mark a before and after in the dynamics of this reference work.
A “modest” paper edition
This 24th edition will be presented in 2026 (so there will be no news announcement in 2025) and it is expected that it will no longer be published completely on paper. “The director’s will is that there will be paper and I think the will of the plenary session as well. It will be a modest edition, for those of us who are paper collectors,” said Muñoz Machado.
The director of the RAE has justified this semi-abandonment of the printed edition by appealing to the few paper sales and, also, to purely physical limitations. “The key is that the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy is a volume of about six and a half centimeters in length, which is the maximum that the best editing machines we have can sew. And that has determined that the font of the edition is very small and that the line spacing is very tight. The dictionary does not have such tiny letters on a whim, it is to include more things. Now those seams are broken and digital technology allows us to incorporate ideas without limit, we can write more, tell more things, have more information.”
The 24th edition, fully digital, will come in 2026 full of new features: “It will be an XML dictionary totally relational. We will be able to browse the dictionary. Now we can do it with some limitations. In the future we will be able to ask the dictionary for a series of things that cannot be asked of it now,” Corbella said.
Muñoz Machado has also emphasized the work that remains to be done, pointing out that, although the current dictionary includes some 94,000 words, it is likely that the total number of Spanish words is double that.
Furthermore, this Tuesday the redesign of the academy’s dictionary website. Among the new features, from today ‘The word of the day’ will be offered on a daily basis, which has been released with the word ‘civilization’.
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