Merriam-Webster announced that the nonbinary pronoun “they” will be added to its dictionary, The Washington Post reported.
In addition to three other definitions of the word, Merriam-Webster has included a new definition of “they,” meaning “used to refer to a single person whose gender identity is nonbinary,” according to the Post.
Emily Brewster, the senior editor of Merriam-Webster, told USA Today, “In more recent years, we have this nonbinary ‘they,’ which is now appearing in carefully edited text. It’s appearing in The New York Times. It is being chosen by people and mentioned in articles with some frequency. It’s simply not a usage that can be ignored anymore.”
Singer Sam Smith recently came forward publicly to state they are gender non-binary, and prefer the pronoun “they,” USA Today reported.
In a blog post this week, Merriam-Webster acknowledged that some have issues with “they” being used a singular pronoun, rather than strictly being used in the plural sense. However, the authors noted that “they has been in consistent use as a singular pronoun since the late 1300s.”
In the same post, Merriam-Webster also claimed to “have evidence in our files of the nonbinary they dating back to 1950,” adding that “it’s likely that there are earlier uses of the nonbinary pronoun they out there.”
“They” was one of 530 new words that Merriam-Webster added to its dictionary this week. Some of the other new words are “deep state,” “escape room,” and “dad joke,” according to CNN.