探花直播 of Cambridge - Wendalyn Nichols

Cambridge Dictionary names 鈥楬allucinate鈥� 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 鈥榝acts鈥�. They 鈥榟allucinate鈥� in a confident and sometimes believable manner.

探花直播Cambridge Dictionary 鈥� the world鈥檚 most popular online dictionary for learners of English 鈥� has updated its definition of hallucinate to account for the new meaning and crowned it聽Word of the Year for 2023.

Hallucinating 鈥榝alse information鈥�

探花直播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'. 探花直播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 鈥� 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鈥檚 own promotional video for Bard, the AI tool made a factual error about the James Webb Space Telescope.

Wendalyn Nichols, Cambridge Dictionary鈥檚 Publishing Manager, said: 鈥� 探花直播fact that AIs can 鈥榟allucinate鈥� 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.

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

鈥楶rofound shift in perception鈥櫬�

探花直播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 探花直播 of Cambridge, said: 鈥� 探花直播widespread use of the term 鈥榟allucinate鈥� to refer to mistakes by systems like ChatGPT provides a fascinating snapshot of how we鈥檙e thinking about and anthropomorphising AI. Inaccurate or misleading information has long been with us, of course, whether in the form of rumours, propaganda, or 鈥榝ake news鈥�.

鈥淲hereas these are normally thought of as human products, 鈥榟allucinate鈥� 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.

鈥淎s this decade progresses, I expect our psychological vocabulary will be further extended to encompass the strange abilities of the new intelligences we鈥檙e creating.鈥�

Addressing hallucinations 鈥� if they can ever be fully fixed 鈥� 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 鈥榞rounding鈥�, with LLM outputs cross-checked against reliable sources or web searches. Some are working on 鈥榬einforcement learning from human feedback鈥�, 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) 探花直播act of falling towards the inside with force; 2) A聽situation in which something fails suddenly and completely.

探花直播tragic case of the Titan submersible鈥檚 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.

探花直播notorious French robber R茅doine Fa茂d blamed 鈥渆nnui鈥� for his helicopter jailbreak: 鈥� 探花直播ennui provoked the escape鈥� My addiction to liberty has consumed me.鈥澛�
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.

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

New words, new meanings聽

Cambridge lexicographers added more than 6,000 new words, phrases and senses in 2023 to the Cambridge Dictionary鈥檚 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
探花直播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 鈥榟allucinate鈥� 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鈥檙e 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鈥檚 most popular website for learners of English, and is the world鈥檚 largest free online dictionary by pageviews. It draws on the Cambridge English Corpus 鈥� a database of over 2 billion words 鈥� covering both British and American English.
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探花直播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鈥檚 expert research in language. Uniquely, the Cambridge Dictionary allows users to toggle easily between British and American English definitions.

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.聽 All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� 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

探花直播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%聽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聽May. But many players would have been rewarded for demonstrating Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year 2021:聽perseverance.

In 2022, the American spelling of humor聽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.

" 探花直播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.聽Ableist聽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鈥檚 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

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.聽 All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� 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.聽

Defined by the dictionary as 鈥榗ontinued effort to do or achieve something, even when this is difficult or takes a long time鈥�, the word鈥檚 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鈥�25 February 2021, after NASA鈥檚 Perseverance Rover made its final descent to Mars on 18 February.聽

Wendalyn Nichols, Cambridge Dictionary Publishing Manager, said: 鈥淚t 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.鈥�

In the following months, however, perseverance continued to be looked up more frequently on the site than ever before. Nichols said: 鈥淛ust 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.鈥�

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.聽

In 2020, 鈥榪uarantine鈥� defeated 'lockdown' and 'pandemic' to be crowned Word of the Year, attracting more than 183,000 views.聽

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.

探花直播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鈥檚 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鈥檚 Perseverance Mars rover takes a selfie over a rock nicknamed 'Rochette' on 10 September 2021

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Cambridge Dictionary names 'quarantine鈥� 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.

探花直播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:

" 探花直播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 鈥楢bout Words鈥� blog, written by language usage experts, helps learners gain confidence in using vocabulary related to specific topics.

探花直播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. 探花直播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.

探花直播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 鈥楴ew Words鈥� 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%聽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.

鈥楺uarantine鈥� has defeated聽'lockdown' and 'pandemic' to be crowned聽Word of the Year 2020 after data showed it to be聽one of the most highly searched聽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 探花直播 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 鈥� and growing.

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

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'Upcycling' crowned Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year 2019

ta385 — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 15:00:00 +0000

Upcycling was chosen as the 鈥榃ord of the Day鈥� which resonated most strongly with followers聽on the Dictionary鈥檚 Instagram account, @CambridgeWords. 探花直播noun聽鈥� defined as the activity of making new furniture, objects, etc. out of old or used things or waste material 鈥� received more likes than any other 鈥榃ord of the Day鈥� when shared on 4 July 2019.聽

探花直播number of times聽upcycling聽has been looked up on the Cambridge Dictionary website has risen by 181%聽since December of 2011, when it was first added to the online dictionary, and searches have doubled in the last year alone.

"We think it's the聽positive idea behind upcycling聽that聽appeals more than the word itself," said Wendalyn Nichols, Publishing Manager of the Cambridge Dictionary. "Stopping the progression of climate change, let alone reversing it, can seem impossible at times. Upcycling is a concrete action a single human being can take to make a difference.

"Lookups of upcycling reflect the momentum around individual actions to combat climate change 鈥� the youth activism sparked by Greta Thunberg; the growing trends of vegan, flexitarian and plant-based diets;聽reading and following the handbook There is No Planet B; or fashion designers upcycling clothes to create their latest collections."聽

Other words on the shortlist for Word of the Year 2019 reflect the same concern with the effects of climate change, for instance:

carbon sink noun聽

An area of forest that is large enough to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide from the earth's atmosphere and therefore to reduce the effect of global warming

compostable adjective聽

Something that is compostable can be used as compost when it decays

preservation noun聽

探花直播act of keeping something the same or of preventing it from being damaged

聽

探花直播Cambridge Dictionary editors use data from the website, blogs, and social media to identify and prioritise new additions to the Dictionary. They identified upcycling as a word to include after noticing a spike in searches for the word in 2010.

A recent addition is the noun plastic footprint, defined as a measurement of the amount of plastic that someone uses and then discards, considered in terms of the resulting damage caused to the environment. This word, first identified by traditional citation gathering, received 1,048 votes in the New Words blog poll, with 61%聽of readers opting for the phrase to be added to Cambridge Dictionary.

Cambridge 探花直播 Press has been publishing dictionaries for learners of English since 1995. Cambridge Dictionary began offering these dictionaries completely free of charge online in 1999. Celebrating its 20th birthday this year, Cambridge Dictionary is the top learner dictionary website on the planet,聽currently serving 394 million unique visitors a year.

Cambridge Dictionary has named 'upcycling', the activity of making new items out of old or used things, as its Word of the Year 2019.聽

Upcycling is a concrete action a single human being can take to make a difference

Wendalyn Nichols

Cambridge 探花直播 Press

Upcycling crowned Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year 2019

CUP and the environment

Cambridge 探花直播 Press is committed to reducing its impact on the environment. Across the world, the Press now sends zero waste to landfill. At its Cambridge office, the Press recently installed one of the UK鈥檚 largest flat roof solar installations - predicted to reduce the carbon footprint of the UK business by more than 20%. 探花直播Press continues to work closely with the wider 探花直播 of Cambridge and partners to ensure long-term commitment to environmental sustainability.

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'Populism' revealed as 2017 Word of the Year by Cambridge 探花直播 Press

sjr81 — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 14:02:21 +0000

Choosing a winner required looking at not only the most searched-for words but also spikes聽鈥� occasions when a word is suddenly looked up many more times than usual on or around a particular date.聽

As Donald Trump, a polarizing candidate was being sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on January 22, 2017, searches for the word 'inauguration' on the online Cambridge Dictionary spiked. But so did searches for the word 'populism' because, on that same day, Pope Francis warned against a rising tide of populism in a widely reported聽interview聽with聽El聽Pais聽newspaper. In mid-March, after another high-profile interview with the pontiff 鈥� this time with the German newspaper聽Die Zeit聽鈥� searches for聽populism聽spiked again.

Wendalyn Nichols, Publishing Manager at Cambridge 探花直播 Press, said: 'Spikes can reveal what is on our users鈥� minds and, in what鈥檚 been another eventful year, plenty of spikes can be directly connected to news items about politics in the US (nepotism,聽recuse,聽bigotry,聽megalomania) and the UK (shambles,聽untenable,聽extradite). 探花直播much-anticipated聽Taylor Review聽of working practices in the UK caused the term 'gig economy' to spike in July, and of course the spectacular solar eclipse is reflected in the spike for聽eclipse聽on 21 August.

'What sets聽populism聽apart from all these other words is that it represents a phenomenon that鈥檚 both truly local and truly global, as populations and their leaders across the world wrestle with issues of immigration and trade, resurgent nationalism, and economic discontent.'

Populism is聽described by the Cambridge Dictionary聽as 鈥榩olitical聽ideas聽and聽activities聽that are聽intended聽to get the聽support聽of聽ordinary people聽by giving them what they聽want鈥�. It includes the usage label 鈥榤ainly disapproving鈥�.聽

Populism聽has a taint of disapproval because the -ism聽ending often indicates a philosophy or ideology that is being approached either uncritically (liberalism,聽conservatism,聽jingoism) or cynically (tokenism).

Evidence from the Cambridge English Corpus 鈥� a 1.5-billion-word database of language 鈥� reveals that people tend to use the term聽populism聽when they think it鈥檚 a political ploy instead of genuine. Both aspects of -ism聽are evident in the use of聽populism聽in 2017: the implied lack of critical thinking on the part of the populace, and the implied cynicism on the part of the leaders who exploit it.

探花直播word 'populism' has been announced as the聽Cambridge Dictionary聽2017 Word of the Year.聽

What sets populism apart from all these other words is that it represents a phenomenon that鈥檚 both truly local and truly global, as populations and their leaders across the world wrestle with issues of immigration and trade, resurgent nationalism, and economic discontent.

Wendalyn Nichols

探花直播White House (official Flickr)

President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks at Yokota Air Base | November 5, 2017 (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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