The Oxford English Dictionary has expanded its lexicon with the inclusion of several Nigerian words and expressions in its latest update, further reflecting the growing global influence of Nigerian and West African culture on the English language.
The update, published in December 2025 and carried into 2026, was announced by the OED on Wednesday via X (formerly Twitter).
According to the OED, the December 2025 update introduced more than 500 new words, phrases and senses, while over 1,000 existing entries were revised as part of its quarterly review process.
The newly added terms cut across food, music, everyday speech, markets and pop culture, with a significant number drawn from Nigerian and West African usage.
Author and OED Head of Pronunciations, Catherine Sangster, said the update marked a major step in documenting how English is spoken across different regions of the world.
“With this update we introduce a new model for the transcription of Maltese English pronunciations; this is the nineteenth World English pronunciation model in our collection,” Sangster said.
She added that the dictionary was also celebrating a decade of spoken pronunciations, which were first introduced in December 2015.
“We also celebrate a decade of OED having spoken pronunciations,” she said.
Sangster noted that the update expanded pronunciation features, including the use of multiple audio files where necessary, with new pronunciations recorded for several West African English entries.
Among the Nigerian expressions added is abeg, which the OED says can be used as an interjection or adverb “to express a range of emotions, such as surprise, exasperation, disbelief, etc.”
Another entry is amala, a popular Nigerian staple, defined as: “In Nigerian cookery: a kind of dough made of yam, cassava, or unripe plantain flour, typically formed into a ball and served as an accompaniment to other dishes.”
The update also formally recognises Afrobeats, describing it as: “Originally: a style of popular music incorporating elements of West African music and of jazz, soul, and funk.”
Other Nigerian and West African expressions added include Ghana Must Go, biko, Mammy Market, nyash and Moi Moi, words commonly used in daily conversations and cultural settings across Nigeria and Ghana.
The update also introduced several African words and expressions, including abrokyire, Adowa, ampesi, benachin, bichir, domoda, dumboy, hiplife, kpanlogo, light soup, nawetan, obroni, poda-poda and yassa.
The latest expansion builds on a previous update in which the OED added 20 Nigerian words and expressions to its dictionary.
That earlier list included popular terms such as japa, agbero, eba, 419 and abi, words closely associated with Nigerian street language, food culture, migration discourse and internet slang.
Other Nigerian entries from the 2025 list were area boy, yahoo boy, yahoo, Naija, suya, kobo, Edo, Kanuri, jand, janded, cross-carpet and cross-carpeting.