OED finally recognises 'wiki'

The word 'wiki' has officially made it into the Oxford English Dictionary.

'Wiki' began life as 'wiki wiki', a Hawaiian word meaning 'quick', but the OED has recognised the abbreviated version as "a type of web page designed so that its content can be edited by anyone who accesses it, using a simplified mark-up language".

"This joins a small but distinguished group of words which are directly or ultimately borrowings into English from Hawaiian," said Graeme Diamond, principal editor of new words at the OED.

"It has been suggested that in some ways the OED itself resembles a wiki. Its long tradition of working on collaborative principles means it has welcomed the contribution of information and quotation evidence from the public for over 150 years."

Although 'wiki' has been in common parlance for some years now, the OED usually takes its time before adding new terms to the English lexicon. The verb 'to google' was not included until last year.  

Other technology related words include 'virtualise', defined as "creating pure software based systems within a single computer"; 'undelete' as a noun and a verb; and 'technopreneur', a "businessman solely involved in the IT industry" .

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