Internet vocabulary broadens: New additions to the Oxford English Dictionary

Some people look forward to the latest series of a long-running TV show. Others eagerly await the next next version of a specific software. Me? I look forward to the quarterly update of the Oxford English Dictionary. June’s update, while mostly devoted to super- and sub- words (2500), still has a few additions for the Internet world. 

Take the addition of cybercast – Originally: a text-based electronic bulletin of information, news, etc., published over the Internet. Now: a (usually live) broadcast on the Internet; = webcast n.

Cloud computing n. is now featuring: the use of networked facilities for the storage and processing of data rather than a user’s local computer, access to data or services typically being via the Internet, as are related features: cloud provider, cloud service, cloud storage, etc.

Thread n. now has an official new meaning: A linked sequence of posts or messages relating to the same subject on a newsgroup or (now more usually) an Internet forum.

And though not Internet-related, I am quite surprised that this entry for folder has only now made it in:  A named entity in a graphical user interface in which documents, programs, files, or groups of these can be held, often in a hierarchical structure (cf. subfolder n. at sub- prefix 2a(b)(ii)); esp. a directory (directory n. Additions c) as represented in such an interface.

See full list of words