English words first recorded in the 20th century

It is formed from English weird + -o. The adjective weird comes through the noun weird, fate, from Old English wyrd (“fate, chance, fortune; destiny”). Etymonline compares the earlier Scottish…

It is borrowed from Japanese 漫画 (manga, “cartoon, caricature”), from man, aimless, involuntary, and ga, picture, so literally “involuntary pictures”. The term is said to have been coined in 1814 by…

1. The parachuting medic is formed from English para- + medic, with para- taken from parachute. Barnhart marks it as American English. 2. The auxiliary medical worker is a back-formation from…

It is a clipping from English jockstrap, which in slang also meant an athletic man. Jockstrap is formed from strap and an older slang jock, the male genitals (1790), of unknown origin; the OED…

It is a shortening from English pornography and pornographic.

It is an acronym formed from the first letters of self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Barnhart and Etymonline identify it as a word of American English. It was at first written in…

It is borrowed from Cantonese 鑊 (wok6), the first part of 鑊氣 (wok6 hei3). The American Heritage Dictionary traces the Cantonese word to Middle Chinese, which is also the source of Chinese 鑊 (huò)…

It is imitative, according to the Shorter Oxford of the sound of vomiting. Etymonline thinks it perhaps echoic and compares the Newfoundland slang verb of the same form meaning to vomit (1963), a US…

It is imitative of the sound. The Shorter Oxford compares blip, and Dictionary.com calls the word perhaps imitative and dates it to 1950–55.

It is formed from English count + down, as a noun use of the verb phrase count down. Etymonline calls it originally American English and dates the verb phrase to 1954, a year after the noun…

It is formed from English video- + tape, the tape being apparently, at first, that of tape recording and tape recorder. The OED quotes two slightly earlier examples from 1952, written as separate…

It is a back-formation from automation, and according to the OED and Etymonline also from automated. Automation was formed from the stem of automatic and automaton with the suffix -ion; in its…

It is formed from English priority + -ize. The noun priority comes from Old French priorite and Medieval Latin prioritās, from Latin prior (“former, earlier”).

It is formed from English aero- + space, with aero- in the sense "atmosphere" and space in the sense of outer space. Barnhart and Etymonline describe it as formed in American English. The prefix…

It is formed from English opium + -oid. Merriam-Webster and Webster's Third take it instead from opiate with the same suffix. Opium is from Latin opium, from Ancient Greek ὄπιον (ópion, “poppy…

It is an alteration of bite, a morsel, after bit, a binary digit, and bit, a small piece, respelled with y so that it could not be confused with bit, the binary digit. Other dictionaries call it a…

It was coined in 1956 by the psychiatrist Humphry Osmond, in a letter to Aldous Huxley, irregularly from Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ, “mind, soul”) + δηλόω (dēlóō, “to make visible, reveal”) with the…

It is an acronym of “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”, on the pattern of maser (1955).

It is formed from English multicultural + -ism. The OED compares the earlier biculturalism and the later monoculturalism. Multicultural, recorded from 1935, is formed from multi- and cultural.

It is formed from English on- + board, or, as most dictionaries put it, it is the adverbial phrase on board used as an adjective. Board in this phrase is the side of a ship, from Old English bord.

It is a compound, from English soft + ware, coined in the computing sense on the model of hardware.

It is formed from English dopa + amine. Merriam-Webster and the Oxford Dictionary of English call it a blend of dopa and amine. Dopa, the amino acid of which dopamine is the decarboxylated form, is…

It is a clipping of go-kart. The American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster take it as probably from “GoKart”, a trademark; the OED notes that “Go Kart” was used as a brand name from 1958 to…

It is a blend from English cybernetic + organism, joining the beginnings of both. The Oxford Dictionary of English takes the first part as cyber-. According to Etymonline, the word was coined by…

It is formed from English dick + head, with dick in its slang sense "penis", recorded from about 1890. Green's Dictionary of Slang treats the second part as the suffix -head. The OED notes that the…

It is a clipping of modern, or in Collins of modernist.

The origin is uncertain. The OED, Merriam-Webster and Etymonline take it as perhaps an alteration of dick in its slang sense "penis"; the American Heritage Dictionary, the Oxford Dictionary of…

It is a shortening of minicar, or from the prefix mini-, itself from miniature, reinforced by minimum. The adjective is partly a shortening of miniature.

It is borrowed from Japanese ラーメン (rāmen), recorded in Japanese by 1930, from Chinese 拉麵 (lāmiàn, “pulled noodles”), a compound of the Chinese words for "to pull, stretch" and "noodle". In Japanese…

It is formed from English trend + -y, from the noun in its sense of a prevailing new fashion, recorded from about 1950. Trend is from Middle English trenden (“to roll about, turn”), from Old English…

It is American slang, a carnival term of unknown origin. Etymonline suggests a link with 19th-century British slang scamp, a cheat or swindler.

It is formed from English skate + board, on the model of surfboard.

It is borrowed from Japanese やくざ (yakuza, “ruffian, gangster”), which the dictionaries explain as the numbers eight, nine and three, the worst hand in a Japanese gambling card game. In that game a…

It is formed from English mother + board. The first element is used in the sense of a main or parent thing on which smaller ones depend, and the OED's definition contrasts it with the smaller…

It is formed from English pix (“pictures”) + element, keeping only the first syllable of the second word. The Oxford Dictionary of English describes it as an abbreviation of the phrase “picture…

It is formed from English care + giver. The second part is the agent noun of give, recorded from the mid-14th century. The word arose in the United States more than a century after caretaker, which…

It is formed from English up + scale, with scale taken by the OED and the Shorter Oxford as the noun, and by Etymonline as the verb. Dictionary.com marks it as an Americanism, and the Shorter Oxford…

It is formed from English firm + ware, on the model of software. The OED explains it as the adjective firm with the noun ware, and Webster's Third as firm with the ending of software.

It is formed from English super- + model.

It is a compound from English corona + virus, which Merriam-Webster labels New Latin. Its first part is from Latin corōna (“crown, wreath”), and its second from vīrus (“poison, slimy liquid”). The…

The origin is unknown. The word first appears in 1968, in the song “Do the Reggay” by Toots and the Maytals. The OED suggests it may be related to Jamaican Creole rege-rege (“rags, ragged…

It is formed from English homophobia + -ic, or, in Etymonline's account, from English homo- + phobic. Homophobia is from homo- as in homosexual and -phobia, perhaps influenced by an earlier…

Most dictionaries derive it from English new + -ie, with a -b- that the American Heritage Dictionary explains as in freebie; Etymonline speaks of new with a diminutive or derogatory suffix. The OED…

It is formed from trans- and gender.

It is formed from English re- + boot. The OED takes the second part as the noun boot in its computing sense, and calls the formation apparent; Etymonline takes it as the verb boot, to start up a…

It is formed from English tri- (“three”) + -athlon, on the model of decathlon and biathlon, with the ending from Ancient Greek ἄθλον (áthlon, “contest”). The OED treats it as formed from τρι- (tri-)…

It is shortened from internetwork, also inter-network, that is, inter- and network.

It was coined in 1976 by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, by shortening mimeme, from Ancient Greek μίμημα (mímēma, “that which is imitated”), from μιμέομαι (miméomai…

It is formed from English wanna + be, representing the casual pronunciation of the phrase “want to be”. The first element itself stands for a colloquial pronunciation of “want to”, with the dental…

It is a compound from English down + load.

It is borrowed from Japanese カラオケ (karaoke), formed from 空 (kara, “empty, void”) and オケ (oke), short for オーケストラ (ōkesutora, “orchestra”), a Japanese rendering of the English word orchestra. It means…

It is formed from up and load, as the opposite of download.

It is formed from English food + -ie. The Oxford Dictionary of New Words places it among the many words in -ie of the 1980s for fans of a thing, as groupie is, and Dictionary.com suggests that the…

It is formed from English voice + mail, with mail in the sense of the post, and was originally written with a space between its parts, a spelling still common.

It is a shortening of electronic mail, first written e-mail, from electronic and mail.

It is formed from lap and top, on the model of desktop.

It is borrowed from Japanese アニメ (anime, “animation”), short for アニメーション (animēshon), which is borrowed from English animation; SOED derives it instead from French animé (“animated”).

It is formed from English bio- + diversity, also spelled with a hyphen. The combining form is from Ancient Greek βίος (bíos, “life, way of living”). Diversity goes back through Middle English…

It is a shortening of caffè latte, which is from Italian caffè latte (“coffee (and) milk”), short for caffè e latte (“coffee and milk”). The Shorter Oxford takes the word directly from latte…

It is a compound of web, in the sense of the World Wide Web, and site. It is also written web site and Web site.