OK is finally OK – Scrabble dictionary updated

SCRABBLE players, it’s time to rethink your game because 300 new words are coming your way, including some long-awaited gems: OK and ew.

Merriam-Webster released the sixth edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, four years after the last freshening up.

“OK is something Scrabble players have been waiting for, for a long time,” said lexicographer Peter Sokolowski, editor at large at Merriam-Webster.

“Basically two and three-letter words are the lifeblood of the game.”

There is more good news in qapik - a unit of currency in Azerbaijan adding to an arsenal of 20 playable words beginning with q that do not need a u.

“Every time there’s a word with q and no u, it’s a big deal,” Mr Sokolowski said.

There are some sweet scorers now eligible for play, including bizjet, and some magical vowel dumps, such as arancini, those Italian balls of cooked rice.

The US dictionary company sought counsel from the North American Scrabble Players Association when updating the book, Mr Sokolowski said, “to make sure that they agree these words are desirable”.

Merriam-Webster put out the first official Scrabble dictionary in 1976.

Before that, the game’s rules called for any desk dictionary to be consulted. Since an official dictionary was created, it has been updated every four to eight years.

Other new acceptable words include aquafaba, beatdown, zomboid, twerk, sheeple, wayback, bokeh, botnet, emoji, facepalm, frowny, hivemind and nubber.