‘Latinx’ Has Been Added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The word “Latinx” is now officially in the Merriam-Webster dictionary

‘Latinx’ Has Been Added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary HipLatina

Photo: 123rf

The word “Latinx” is now officially in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. A somewhat controversial term, Latinx—pronounced luh-TEE- neks the website explains — is the gender-neutral alternative to Latino and Latina, intentionally breaking with Spanish’s gendered grammatical tradition of using o or a.

Most commonly used in academic and social media spaces, the term was reportedly first used online in 2014. Now it joins the more than 840 new words added to the popular dictionary.

In a blog post on the dictionary’s website, it references the historical journey to the word and previous attempts to make Latino/a inclusive such as the term Latin@, but, ultimately, still didn’t reflect those outside the gender binary. With Latinx, the “x” signifies something unknown and is used in Latinx to connote unspecified gender, acknowledging those who identify as agender, gender non-conforming, gender fluid, gender questioning, genderqueer and non binary.

There has been mixed reviews as the news hit the web on Wednesday.

Stay connected! Subscribe now and get the latest on culture, empowerment, and more.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and Google Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service.

Thank You! You are already subscribed to our newsletter

Juana María Rodríguez, a queer professor in the Ethnic Studies Department at UC Berkeley, tweeted: “Latinx is in the dictionary people. @MerriamWebster”

@inkedmargins tweeted: “Latinx” is now in the dictionary!!!!!!!

https://twitter.com/inkedmargins/status/1037162386929721344

Another tweet reads:

Jerónimo Saldaña, co-director of the Justice Reform Collaborative at LatinoJustice PRLDEF, announced the news from his Twitter account and several responses questioned the need for the word, even referencing it as a “rebranding” of our identity.

But Nelson Flores, associate professor in Educational Linguistics at University of Pennsylvania,  set the record straight, tweeting:

“Though Latinx is becoming common in social media and in academic writing, it is unclear whether it will catch on in mainstream use,” the September blog post notes. “Nevertheless, it is gaining noticeable traction among the general public as a gender-inclusive term for Latin Americans of diverse identities and orientations.”

In this Article

latinx
More on this topic