Can You Pronounce Oxford Dictionary’s New Last Word... Zyzzyva?

Watch the video as Quintees try their luck figuring out what ‘Zyzzyva’ means.

Pronouncing the new last word in the Oxford Dictionary is a back-breaking task. (Photo: The Quint)

Pronouncing the new last word in the Oxford Dictionary is a back-breaking task. In the latest quarterly update, Oxford English Dictionary has added over 1,200 new words, phrases and senses, and ‘Zyzzyva’ is one of them. But, what does it really mean?

Until now, the last alphabetic entry in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was ‘zythum’, a kind of malt beer brewed in ancient Egypt. Katherine Connor Martin, Head of US Dictionaries, said in a blog post:

Some sources suggest it is an onomatopoeic reference to the noise made by the weevil, possibly inspired by a former genus of leafhoppers, Zyzza, and perhaps chosen deliberately as an alphabetical curiosity

The OED publishes four updates every year. The next update will be added to the dictionary in September 2017.

Watch the video as Quintees try their luck decoding ‘Zyzzyva’.

Video Editor: Vivek Gupta

(With inputs from PTI)

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