Eleven Filipino words have officially made their way into the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)!
These words, often “untranslatable,” have been recognized for their frequent usage in Philippine English.
In its March 2025 update, the OED emphasized the importance of incorporating words from various languages, particularly those that address language gaps in English.
“For people who speak English alongside other languages, there is an easy way to fill such a lexical gap—simply borrowing the untranslatable word from another language. Sometimes, they do this with enough frequency that the borrowed word eventually becomes part of the vocabulary of their variety of English,” the OED said.
Here are the newly added Filipino words in the OED, along with their definitions:
- CR (noun) – “A toilet; a lavatory”
- gigil (noun and adjective) – “An intense feeling caused by anger, eagerness, or the pleasure of seeing someone or something cute or adorable, typically physically manifested by the tight clenching of hands, gritting of the teeth, trembling of the body, or the pinching or squeezing of the person or thing causing this emotion.”
- kababayan (noun) – “A fellow Filipino; one’s fellow Filipino. Also: a person from the same Philippine region or town as another.”
- load (noun) – “Credit purchased for a pay-as-you-go mobile phone.”
- lumpia (noun) – “In East and Southeast Asian cookery: any of various types of spring roll, typically consisting of a very thin pancake filled with minced meat, seafood, or vegetables, rolled into a cylinder (and sometimes deep-fried), and served with a dipping sauce.”
- Pinoy (adjective sense added to existing noun sense) – “Of, belonging to, or relating to the Philippines or Filipinos.”
- salakot (noun) – “A type of lightweight Filipino hat traditionally worn by farmers as protection against the weather, typically domed or conical in shape, with a wide brim, and often having a spiked or ornamental finial at the tip of the crown.”
- sando (noun) – “A sleeveless garment worn under or instead of a shirt; a vest.”
- terror (adjective) – “Of a teacher: strict, harsh, demanding.”
- Thomasite (noun) – “An American teacher in the Philippines during the period of American occupation (1899–1946); esp. one belonging to the first group of teachers who arrived on the U.S. Army Transport Thomas in 1901, tasked with establishing a new public school system, teaching basic education, and training Filipino teachers, using English as the primary language of instruction.”
- videoke (noun) – “A form of entertainment popular in bars, at parties, etc., in which a person sings the vocal line of a popular song to the accompaniment of a pre-recorded backing tape while following the lyrics which appear on a screen in time with the music. Also: the equipment used for this. Frequently as a modifier, esp. in videoke bar.”
