English words first recorded in the 20th century

It was formed in English in 1931 from micro- and wave. In the kitchen sense it is short for the phrase microwave oven.

1. The cheese is borrowed from German Quark (“curd, curds”), from Middle High German quarc, also twarc, of Slavic origin, from Lower Sorbian twarog, from Old Church Slavonic tvarogŭ. 2. The particle…

It is formed from English super- + market in American English, and the OED compares superstore.

It is probably formed from English hip + -ster, from the adjective hip, aware, in the know. The adjective, recorded from 1904 and apparently first used by African Americans, is probably a variant of…

It is formed from English price + -y, also spelled pricy.

It is formed from English super- + nova. Merriam-Webster calls it a New Latin formation from the same parts, and Chambers derives the prefix from super- (“above”). Nova is the feminine of Latin…

It is formed from English pest + -i- + -cide, on the model of insecticide. The first part is from French peste, from Latin pestis (“deadly contagious disease; curse, bane”), a word of uncertain…

1. The musical phrase is of uncertain origin. Most dictionaries think it probably a shortening, with a change of vowel, from English refrain (“a repeated phrase or chorus”), a word that Word Origins…

It is the combining form audio- used as a word, influenced by the earlier video (1935). Audio- is a modern coinage (1913) from the stem of Latin audiō “to hear”, from Proto-Indo-European *au- (“to…

It is borrowed from Spanish burrito, a Mexican and American Spanish word, recorded in dictionaries of Mexican Spanish from 1895 according to the OED, while Etymonline cites the “Diccionario de…

It is formed from English para- + military. The prefix means alongside or beyond and comes from Ancient Greek παρά (pará, “beside, near”); military is from Old French militaire and mīlitāris (“of…

It is formed from English roll + out, after the phrasal verb roll out. Dictionary.com takes the noun as a use of the verb phrase. It is also written with a hyphen.

It is a compound from English eco- + system. Etymonline suggests that it was coined by the English ecologist Sir Arthur George Tansley (1871–1955), and the OED's first example is from Tansley's…

It is formed from English multi- + cultural, that is, multi-, "many", with culture and -al. The OED compares the earlier monocultural.

It is borrowed from German Testosteron, coined in 1935 by K. David and his colleagues in the “Zeitschrift für physiologische Chemie”, from Latin testis (“testicle”), sterol and the chemical suffix…

It was coined from Latin videō (“I see”), the first-person singular present of vidēre (“to see”), as a visual counterpart to audio. Barnhart suggests its adoption was helped by the ending of radio.

It is formed from English whack + -y, and is also spelled whacky. Most dictionaries take the noun whack, a blow or stroke, as the base, and the American Heritage Dictionary thinks it probably comes…

It is a shortening of demonstration.

It is formed from English sterol + -oid, that is, the first part of sterol with the suffix meaning "resembling". Sterol was taken from the ending of cholesterol and similar chemical names, and -oid…

It is probably a shortening of logogram, a sign standing for a word, or of logotype, both formed from Ancient Greek λόγος (lógos, “word”) (see logic).

It is a blend from English modulator + demodulator.

It is a back-formation from surrealism or surrealist. The OED suggests that it may first have been coined in French, as French surréel. Surrealism is surréalisme, from sur- (“beyond”) and réalisme…

It is formed from New Latin virus (see virus) and -al.

It is formed from English elite + -ist, after elitism. Elite is from French élite (“selection, choice”), from Old French eslite, the feminine past participle of elire (“to pick out, choose”), from…

It is formed from English escalate + -ation. Merriam-Webster derives it instead from escalator and -ion. The noun is recorded two decades before the verb came into general figurative use in 1959…

It is borrowed from German Flak, short for Fliegerabwehrkanone (“anti-aircraft gun”), from the initial letters of its parts. The compound is formed from Flieger (“flier, airman; airplane”), Abwehr…

It was coined in 1938 by the Du Pont company as a generic name, not a trademark, an arbitrary formation on the model of cotton and rayon. According to Du Pont it is a syllable “nyl-” with no meaning…

It is the noun use of the phrasal verb bail out, formed from English bail + out. The sources differ on which verb it contains. The OED derives the sense of rescue from difficulty from the legal…

It is a shortening of blitzkrieg, or, in Barnhart's words, borrowed from German Blitz (“lightning”), originally as short for Blitzkrieg (“lightning war”). The German compound is formed from Blitz…

It is a shortening of hamburger, first in American English. The element -burger was quickly abstracted from hamburger, even though a hamburger is not a burger of ham, in words like cheeseburger…

It is formed from English acro- + -onym, after German Akronym, recorded from 1921 or earlier; Merriam-Webster thinks the English word was probably borrowed from the German one. Etymonline calls it…

It is probably formed from the initials GP, read aloud and standing for “general purpose”, the US Army designation of the vehicle, or, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, for “Government”…

It was formed in English from screen and shot, the latter in its photographic sense.

It is a clipping, first of vibraphone, and later of vibration in its 1960s slang sense of an instinctive feeling.

1. It is borrowed from Japanese 段 (dan, “step, grade”). 2. It is inherited from Middle English dan, daun, borrowed from Old French dan (“lord, master”), from Medieval Latin domnus, from Latin…

It is an acronym from ra(dio) d(etecting) a(nd) r(anging), coined in American English. NODE gives “radio detection and ranging”.

It is formed from English robot + -ics, the OED taking it from robotic with the suffix -ics. It was coined by Isaac Asimov, in science fiction. Robot is from Czech robot, from Karel Čapek's play…

It is a compound from English up + date, first American, from the phrase up to date.

It is formed from English block + buster, block being a city block, a built-up square of streets, and buster an agent noun from bust, to break. The name refers to the widespread destruction such a…

It began as “Gung Ho”, the motto of the Second Raider Battalion of the United States Marines, introduced in 1942 by Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson, and is a borrowing from Mandarin Chinese. The…

It is an acronym from the first letters of the phrase sound navigation and ranging, formed on the pattern of radar. Barnhart and Etymonline give the phrase without the conjunction. Barnhart calls…

It is borrowed from Afrikaans apartheid (“separateness”), formed from Dutch apart (“separate”) and the suffix -heid, which corresponds to -hood. The Dutch adverb is from French à part, the source of…

It was coined in 1944 by the Polish-born American jurist Raphael Lemkin, in his Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, of the Nazi extermination of the Jews, from Ancient Greek γένος (génos, “race, kind”)…

It is formed from English multi- + disciplinary, or, in Etymonline's analysis, from multi-, discipline and -ary. The OED compares the earlier interdisciplinary. Disciplinary is from Medieval Latin…

It is formed from English neuro- + science. The combining form neuro- goes back to Ancient Greek νευρο- (neuro-), the combining form of νεῦρον (neûron, “sinew, tendon, nerve”), which is cognate with…

It was coined in 1944 by the English vegetarian Donald Watson from the first and last letters of vegetarian, to tell apart those who abstain from all animal products from those who merely refuse to…

It is a blend from English transmitter + responder, or, in the analysis of the OED and Oxford dictionaries, of parts of transmit and respond, with the agent suffix -er.

It is formed from English circuit + -ry, the noun being used in its electrical sense. Circuit is from Middle English circuit (“circumference”), from Old French circuit, from Latin circuitus (“a…

It is formed from English lone + -er. Lone is a shortening of alone, recorded from the late 14th century.

It is borrowed from Japanese 空手 (karate, “empty hand”), from 空 (kara, “empty”) and 手 (te, “hand”), meaning without weapons. The OED explains that this is an alteration, by a change of kanji, of 唐手…

1. The linguistic term is a back-formation from morpheme, or, as the OED, Collins and the Shorter Oxford put it, a shortening of that word; Dictionary.com also allows an independent use of the…

It is formed from English hip + -ie, from hip in the sense "aware, up to date", or with the suffix -y in the OED's analysis; it is also spelled hippy. Etymonline and Barnhart treat the first use as…

It was coined from English sero- + tonic + -in: sero- is the combining form of serum, the middle element is taken from the adjective tonic, and -in is the suffix of chemical names. Merriam-Webster…

It is most often explained as a blend, from English transfer + resistor, because the device transfers an electrical signal across a resistor. The OED also allows a second explanation, from the…

It is formed from English holo- + -gram, from Ancient Greek ὅλος (hólos, “whole”), used here in the sense "three-dimensional", and γράμμα (grámma, “that which is written or drawn”). Etymonline…

It is formed from English sex + -ist, on the model of racist, and the OED takes it as formed after sexism. Etymonline and Hendrickson credit the word to a speech of 18 November 1965 at Franklin and…

It is formed from English sign + -age. Etymonline notes that the word was used earlier in legal language for the affixing of signatures, and that Middle English had signance (“a sign, signal…

It is formed from English stereotype + -ical. Stereotype is from French stéréotype (“printed by means of a solid plate of type”), from Ancient Greek στερεός (stereós, “solid”) and type (“type”). The…

It is formed from English multi- + media, partly from media in the sense of the mass media and partly from the same word as the plural of medium. The OED compares the earlier adjective multimedial…

It is a compound, from English on + line, also written on-line.