̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - lexicography

Cambridge Dictionary names ‘Hallucinate’ Word of the Year 2023

ta385 — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This year has seen a surge in interest in generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT, Bard and Grok, with public attention shifting towards the limitations of AI and whether they can be overcome.

AI tools, especially those using large language models (LLMs), have proven capable of generating plausible prose, but they often do so using false, misleading or made-up ‘facts’. They ‘hallucinate’ in a confident and sometimes believable manner.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Dictionary – the world’s most popular online dictionary for learners of English – has updated its definition of hallucinate to account for the new meaning and crowned it Word of the Year for 2023.

Hallucinating ‘false information’

̽��ֱ��traditional definition of hallucinate is 'to seem to see, hear, feel, or smell something that does not exist, usually because of a health condition or because you have taken a drug'. ̽��ֱ��new, additional definition is:

'When an artificial intelligence (= a computer system that has some of the qualities that the human brain has, such as the ability to produce language in a way that seems human) hallucinates, it produces false information.'

AI hallucinations, also known as confabulations, sometimes appear nonsensical. But they can also seem entirely plausible – even while being factually inaccurate or ultimately illogical.

AI hallucinations have already had real-world impacts. A US law firm used ChatGPT for legal research, which led to fictitious cases being cited in court. In Google’s own promotional video for Bard, the AI tool made a factual error about the James Webb Space Telescope.

Wendalyn Nichols, Cambridge Dictionary’s Publishing Manager, said: “ ̽��ֱ��fact that AIs can ‘hallucinate’ reminds us that humans still need to bring their critical thinking skills to the use of these tools. AIs are fantastic at churning through huge amounts of data to extract specific information and consolidate it. But the more original you ask them to be, the likelier they are to go astray.

“At their best, large language models can only be as reliable as their training data. Human expertise is arguably more important – and sought after – than ever, to create the authoritative and up-to-date information that LLMs can be trained on.”

‘Profound shift in perception’

̽��ֱ��new definition illustrates a growing tendency to anthropomorphise AI technology, using human-like metaphors as we speak, write and think about machines.

Dr Henry Shevlin, an AI ethicist at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��widespread use of the term ‘hallucinate’ to refer to mistakes by systems like ChatGPT provides a fascinating snapshot of how we’re thinking about and anthropomorphising AI. Inaccurate or misleading information has long been with us, of course, whether in the form of rumours, propaganda, or ‘fake news’.

“Whereas these are normally thought of as human products, ‘hallucinate’ is an evocative verb implying an agent experiencing a disconnect from reality. This linguistic choice reflects a subtle yet profound shift in perception: the AI, not the user, is the one 'hallucinating.' While this doesn't suggest a widespread belief in AI sentience, it underscores our readiness to ascribe human-like attributes to AI.

“As this decade progresses, I expect our psychological vocabulary will be further extended to encompass the strange abilities of the new intelligences we’re creating.”

Addressing hallucinations – if they can ever be fully fixed – may define the future success and uptake of generative AI.

Engineers and academics around the world, including at OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft, are working to limit AI hallucinations through ‘grounding’, with LLM outputs cross-checked against reliable sources or web searches. Some are working on ‘reinforcement learning from human feedback’, using people to help tackle hallucinations and work out how they can be predicted and eliminated.

What else captured the 2023 zeitgeist?

Several other words experienced spikes in public interest and searches on the Cambridge Dictionary website. They included:

Implosion
1) ̽��ֱ��act of falling towards the inside with force; 2) A situation in which something fails suddenly and completely.

̽��ֱ��tragic case of the Titan submersible’s implosion led many to look up the definition.

Ennui
A feeling of being bored and mentally tired caused by having nothing interesting or exciting to do.

̽��ֱ��notorious French robber Rédoine Faïd blamed “ennui” for his helicopter jailbreak: “ ̽��ֱ��ennui provoked the escape… My addiction to liberty has consumed me.”
Ennui was also the Wordle answer on 5 June 2023.

Grifter
Someone who gets money dishonestly by tricking people.

Public figures were controversially accused of being 'grifters', including Prince Harry and Megan Markle (by a Spotify executive) and Nigel Farage (by Coutts bank).

GOAT
Abbreviation for Greatest Of All Time: used to refer to or describe the person who has performed better than anyone else ever, especially in a sport.

̽��ֱ��Qatar World Cup provoked new debates about who is the GOAT in football: Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, or one of the late greats like Pelé or Diego Maradona?

New words, new meanings

Cambridge lexicographers added more than 6,000 new words, phrases and senses in 2023 to the Cambridge Dictionary’s 170,000+ English definitions.

Beyond hallucinate, several additions reflect rapid developments in AI and computing, such as:

Prompt engineering
In artificial intelligence, the process of designing prompts that will give the best possible results.

Large language model
A complex mathematical representation of language that is based on very large amounts of data and allows computers to produce language that seems similar to what a human might say.

GenAI
Abbreviation for generative AI: the use or study of artificial intelligences that are able to produce text, images, etc.

Train
In machine learning, to create or improve a computer representation of a system or process by supplying it with data.

Black box
A system that produces results without the user being able to see or understand how it works.

Other noteworthy additions to the Cambridge Dictionary in 2023 include:

Shadowban
An act of a social media company limiting who can see someone's posts, usually without the person who has published them knowing.

Vibe check
An act of finding out how someone is feeling or how they make you feel, or what the mood in a particular place or situation is.

Water neutral
(Of a building development, business, etc) not using more water than was used in an area before it was built or established, or not removing more water than it replaces.

Pick up what someone is putting down (US)
to understand what someone means by their words, music, etc.

Affrilachian
An African American who comes from or lives in the region of Appalachia in the eastern United States.

Range anxiety
̽��ֱ��fear that an electric vehicle will not have enough battery charge to take you where you want to go to.

UBI
Abbreviation for universal basic income: an amount of money that is given regularly to everyone or to every adult in a society by a government or other organisation and that is the same for everyone.

Newly emerging words that are being considered for entry are shared every Monday on the Cambridge Dictionary blog, About Words.

A new definition of ‘hallucinate’ was one of many AI-related updates to the Cambridge Dictionary in 2023.

I expect our psychological vocabulary will be further extended to encompass the strange abilities of the new intelligences we’re creating.

Henry Shevlin

Chen via Pixabay

Silhouette of a woman facing a question mark and microchips

About Cambridge Dictionary

With over 2.3 billion pageviews and over 420 million visitors per year, Cambridge Dictionary is the world’s most popular website for learners of English, and is the world’s largest free online dictionary by pageviews. It draws on the Cambridge English Corpus – a database of over 2 billion words – covering both British and American English.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Dictionary is completely free of charge. Its rich dictionary, thesaurus and grammar resources such as quizzes and word lists are all informed by Cambridge’s expert research in language. Uniquely, the Cambridge Dictionary allows users to toggle easily between British and American English definitions.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Cambridge Dictionary names 'homer' Word of the Year 2022

ta385 — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 10:04:35 +0000

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Dictionary has revealed its word of the year for 2022 as 'homer'. Editors have credited disgruntled Wordle players whose winning streak was ended by the unfamiliar American English term.

Homer, an informal American English word for a home run in baseball, was searched for nearly 75,000 times on the Cambridge Dictionary website during the first week of May when it was an answer in the online five-letter word puzzle.

It became the dictionary's highest-spiking word of the year, and editors said five-letter Wordle answers dominated searches this year as the game became a global phenomenon.

Tellingly, 95% of searches for homer were from outside North America as baffled Wordle players turned to the Cambridge Dictionary to find out what it meant.

Some speakers of British English expressed frustration on social media about the choice of 'homer' as the Wordle answer for 5 May. But many players would have been rewarded for demonstrating Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year 2021: perseverance.

In 2022, the American spelling of humor caused the second highest spike. In third place was caulk, a word more familiar in American English than in British English, meaning to fill the spaces around the edge of something, for example a bath or window frame, with a special substance.

Wendalyn Nichols, Cambridge Dictionary's publishing manager, said: "Wordle's words, and the public's reactions to them, illustrate how English speakers continue to be divided over differences between English language varieties, even when they're playing a globally popular new word game that has brought people together online for friendly competition about language.

" ̽��ֱ��differences between British and American English are always of interest not just to learners of English but to English speakers globally, and word games are also perennially entertaining.

"We've seen those two phenomena converge in the public conversations about Wordle, and the way five-letter words have simply taken over the lookups on the Cambridge Dictionary website."

Searches for Wordle's five-letter words on the Cambridge Dictionary website squeezed out other high-interest words that reflected current affairs. These included oligarch, likely triggered by new international sanctions and geopolitical shifts amid Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. Ableist spiked during the controversy over the use of an ableist slur in lyrics to the pop song Grrrls by Lizzo.

Additions to the Cambridge Dictionary this year have included shrinkflation, defined as the situation when the price of a product stays the same but its size gets smaller.

Homer, an informal American English word for a home run in baseball, is Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2022, thanks to Wordle.

English speakers continue to be divided over differences between English language varieties

Wendalyn Nichols

Keith Johnston from Pixabay

A home run in a baseball game

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Cambridge Dictionary names 'perseverance' Word of the Year 2021

ta385 — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Perseverance has been looked up more than 243,000 times on the website in 2021, the first time it has made a noticeable appearance.

Defined by the dictionary as ‘continued effort to do or achieve something, even when this is difficult or takes a long time’, the word’s stellar performance this year may have as much to do with NASA as the pandemic. A spike of 30,487 searches for perseverance occurred between 19–25 February 2021, after NASA’s Perseverance Rover made its final descent to Mars on 18 February.

Wendalyn Nichols, Cambridge Dictionary Publishing Manager, said: “It made sense that lookups of 'perseverance' spiked at this time. Cambridge Dictionary is the top website in the world for learners of English, and perseverance is not a common word for students of English to have in their vocabulary. We often see spikes in lookups of words associated with current events when those words are less familiar.”

In the following months, however, perseverance continued to be looked up more frequently on the site than ever before. Nichols said: “Just as it takes perseverance to land a rover on Mars, it takes perseverance to face the challenges and disruption to our lives from COVID-19, climate disasters, political instability and conflict. We appreciated that connection, and we think Cambridge Dictionary users do, too.”

Further evidence that words looked up on Cambridge Dictionary often reflect world events is that in January searches for insurrection, impeachment, inauguration and acquit all spiked as the world closely followed the US presidential election.

In 2020, ‘quarantine’ defeated 'lockdown' and 'pandemic' to be crowned Word of the Year, attracting more than 183,000 views.

People use Cambridge Dictionary to develop their English language skills, and those who look up perseverance will find more than just the definition of the word. A new Cambridge Thesaurus article on perseverance goes beyond listing synonyms to explain the nuanced differences in meaning between perseverance, determination, persistence, doggedness, single-mindedness, tenacity, resolve, will, and the US term stick-to-it-iveness.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge team have also created a new list of words about being determined for English learners on Cambridge Dictionary +Plus. Research shows that many people learn new vocabulary more effectively when they have a record of it, so they can go back to study and test themselves. This word list includes vocabulary related to perseverance, so English language learners can easily find out more about the word of the year while simultaneously expanding their vocabulary.

Find out more about Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year 2021

Perseverance, a word which captures the undaunted will of people across the world to never give up, despite the many challenges of the last 12 months, is Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2021.

Just as it takes perseverance to land a rover on Mars, it takes perseverance to face challenges and disruption to our lives

Wendalyn Nichols

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover takes a selfie over a rock nicknamed 'Rochette' on 10 September 2021

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Cambridge Dictionary names 'quarantine’ Word of the Year 2020

ta385 — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 08:00:00 +0000

Quarantine was the only word to rank in the top five for both search spikes (28,545) and overall views (more than 183,000 by early November), with the largest spike in searches seen the week of 18-24 March, when many countries around the world went into lockdown as a result of COVID-19.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Dictionary editors have also tracked how people are using quarantine, and have discovered a new meaning emerging: a general period of time in which people are not allowed to leave their homes or travel freely, so that they do not catch or spread a disease. Research shows the word is being used synonymously with lockdown, particularly in the United States, to refer to a situation in which people stay home to avoid catching the disease.

This new sense of quarantine has now been added to the Cambridge Dictionary, and marks a shift from the existing meanings that relate to containing a person or animal suspected of being contagious: a specific period of time in which a person or animal that has a disease, or may have one, must stay or be kept away from others in order to prevent the spread of the disease.

Wendalyn Nichols, Cambridge Dictionary Publishing Manager, said:

" ̽��ֱ��words that people search for reveal not just what is happening in the world, but what matters most to them in relation to those events. Neither coronavirus nor COVID-19 appeared among the words that Cambridge Dictionary users searched for most this year. We believe this indicates that people have been fairly confident about what the virus is.

"Instead, users have been searching for words related to the social and economic impacts of the pandemic, as evidenced not just by quarantine but by the two runners-up on the shortlist for Word of the Year: lockdown, and pandemic itself."

Cambridge Dictionary is the top dictionary website for learners of English in the world. As well as definitions, the Cambridge Dictionary shows how words are used in real-world contexts. Its ‘About Words’ blog, written by language usage experts, helps learners gain confidence in using vocabulary related to specific topics.

̽��ֱ��most highly viewed blog post this year was Quarantine, carriers and face masks: the language of the coronavirus, which had almost 80,000 views in the first six weeks after it was posted on February 26, and now ranks as the ninth most viewed 'About Words' post in the nearly ten years that the blog has been live. ̽��ֱ��post covers a range of related terms, such as infectious, contagious, carriers, super-spreaders, and symptoms, as well as phrases such as contract a virus, a spike in cases, contain the spread, and develop a vaccine.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Dictionary editors regularly monitor a wide range of sources for the new words and meanings that are added monthly to the online dictionary. On the ‘New Words’ blog, potential new additions are posted weekly for readers to cast their vote on whether they feel these words should be added.

In a recent poll, 33% of respondents said quaranteam - combining quarantine and team, meaning a group of people who go into quarantine together - should be added to the dictionary. Other suggestions include the portmanteau words quaranteen, coronial and lockstalgia.

‘Quarantine’ has defeated 'lockdown' and 'pandemic' to be crowned Word of the Year 2020 after data showed it to be one of the most highly searched for on the Cambridge Dictionary.

Users have been searching for words related to the social and economic impacts of the pandemic

Wendalyn Nichols

Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Man sat looking out of a window at a giant representation of COVID-19. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

About Cambridge Dictionary

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press has been publishing dictionaries for learners of English since 1995. Cambridge Dictionary began offering these dictionaries completely free of charge online in 1999. Cambridge Dictionary is the top learner dictionary website on the planet, serving 2.8 billion page views a year – and growing.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Dictionary editors monitor a wide range of sources for the new words and meanings that are added monthly to the online dictionary: traditional media, blogs and social media posts, and user lookups from the website itself.

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