'Queerbaiting' & Other LGBTQ+ Terms Were Just Added to the Dictionary

Dictionary.com, everyone’s go-to online dictionary, has updated their 2023 database to include hundreds of new and popular terms, including ones belonging to the LGBTQ+ communities.

Of the more than 300 new entries, one of the more important updates is the addition of “queerbaiting,” which is now classified as a slang marketing technique “involving intentional homoeroticism or suggestions of LGBTQ+ themes intended to draw in an LGBTQ+ audience, without explicit inclusion of openly LGBTQ+ relationships, characters, or people.”

“Queerbaiting” is among the new terms that address behaviors considered toxic or harmful. Other behaviors include “rage farming,” or intentionally provoking political opponents, and “trauma dumping,” or unsolicited, one-sided sharing of traumatic experiences.

“Language is, as always, constantly changing, but the sheer range and volume of vocabulary captured in our latest update to Dictionary.com reflects a shared feeling that change today is happening faster and more than ever before,” said John Kelly, senior director of editorial at Dictionary.com, in a statement.

The editors also reworked the definition of “sex,” which clarifies that while sex is usually framed as a male-female binary based on reproduction, several characteristics such as “genitals, chromosomes, hormonal profiles, and external physical features” also play a role.

Other words like “abrosexual,” or having a fluid/changing sexual orientation, and “multisexual,” or an attraction to multiple genders, also help bring awareness and attention to aspects of the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

“Our team of lexicographers is documenting and contextualizing that unstoppable swirl of the English language,” said Kelly. “Not only to help us better understand our changing times, but how the times we live in change, in turn, our language.”

A complete list of new words and updated terms can be found here.