Urban Dictionary, the online open-source dictionary of slang

With more than four million definitions submitted so far, and 2,000 more coming in every day, Urban Dictionary is a stunningly useful document that unlike most media is made and used by actual young people

“Wikipedia strives for its N.P.O.V. — its neutral point of view,” he told me by phone. “We’re the opposite of that. Every single word on here is written by someone with a point of view, with a personal experience of the word in the entry.”

Urban Dictionary is not a lexicographical project at all. Its wheelhouse is sociolinguistics

doesn’t mean that Urban Dictionary contains only actual words. Far from it. An entry is often likely to be an ad-hoc neologism, invented just for this dictionary

impressive, funny or complex experiences are so common that they demand a shorthand to designate them

beer drinkers (“déjà brew”)

laid-off workers (“canniversary”)

neologisms serve to crystallize

entire experiences