The social networking website Facebook has made it into the dictionary, it was announced today.
The site's soaring popularity has won its inclusion in the 2008 edition of the Collins English Dictionary.
Editors of the publication have defined the term as both a trademarked noun referring to 'a popular social networking website', and as a verb, meaning 'to search for (a person's profile) on the Facebook website'.
And in an acknowledgment of how people may reveal potentially embarrassing information on the site, the dictionary gives as an example of the word's usage: 'I thought one of the interviewees was perfect for the job, until I Facebooked him.'
According to Collins, the term 'Facebook' occurs ten times more frequently in recent updates to its dictionary databases than it does in sources overall.
A spokeswoman for Collins said: '"Facebook" has been the phenomenon of 2007. Though social networking has been around for several years, this year has seen it break into the mainstream, with 200,000 signing up every day.'
Editors have also noted a variety of words relating to Facebook, with the dictionary giving fresh meaning to the word 'pimp'.
It explains that to 'pimp (one's profile)' is 'to make one's profile page on a social networking site appear more attractive by adding graphics, video, music, etc'.
Following the Northern Rock crisis, the word 'subprime' has made it into the dictionary.
It is defined as both an adjective referring to a loan 'made to a borrower with a poor credit rating, typically at a high rate of interest', and as a noun, meaning 'a high-interest loan made to a borrower with a poor credit rating'.
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Topic: Facebook Pokes Its Way Into Dictionary (Read 525 times)