Some new sports terms are entering the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. That dictionary revealed its addition of 690 words Wednesday, and there are some notable sports ones amongst those, including “beast mode,” “GOATED,” and “bracketology.” Here’s more on that, from Brian Niemetz of The New York Daily News:
“We’re very excited by this new batch of words,” said Merriam-Webster Editor at Large Peter Sokolowski. “We hope there is as much insight and satisfaction in reading them as we got from defining them.”
Beast mode defines “an extremely aggressive or energetic style or manner that someone (such as an athlete) adopts temporarily (as to overpower an opponent in a fight or competition).”
Bracketology is the study of tournament brackets, pertaining largely to the NCAA basketball tournament beginning in March, while GOATED — derived from the term Greatest of All Time — describes someone who’s the best ever at what they do.
Those are certainly significant additions. And bracketology in particular is notable, with that being a particular term first referenced around Joe Lunardi in the late 1990s (while he was at the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, before he joined ESPN in 1996). It’s also interesting to see “Beast Mode” (a term long associated with current Prime Video contributor Marshawn Lynch in particular) added here. And these are certainly notable sports dictionary updates.
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.