If you are bothered by "loud and pounding music", you can ask, with the dictionary in your hand, for someone to turn down the noise. Likewise, video refereeing and its acronym VAR can be found in the academic dictionary.
In the social sphere, you can use homelessness without restrictions, to refer to the "circumstance of the person who lacks a home to live in and, generally, any means of living." Additionally, the DLE will inform you that homelessness is its synonym.
All this has just been learned, in the presentation of the new features for 2023, of the Dictionary of the Spanish Language (DLE), prepared by the RAE and the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language (Asale).
However, the main novelty is not a word or a definition, but a new characteristic. With 280,000 synonyms and antonyms, the DLE takes a giant step and becomes a normative dictionary as well as synonyms and antonyms. Now, when a word is consulted, if it has synonyms and cognates, or antonyms and opposites, they will appear within the same entry.
In addition, each word, each synonym (260,000) and each antonym (20,000) are duly linked, so that the user can navigate from one word to another, and know its meaning, its scope of use (social or territorial) and its etymology.
This novelty, of great relevance in the normative dictionary, has been accompanied in this electronic version 23.7 of the DLE by 4381 innovations and modifications in the mottos, as is tradition at the end of each year.
The news for 2023 has been broken down by the director of the RAE and president of the Asale, Santiago Muñoz Machado, who announces a complete renewal of the dictionary for 2026, and the head of the RAE Institute of Lexicography, Elena Zamora.
The director of the dictionary, academic Paz Battaner, has asked to be relieved of her responsibilities, and the director has announced that, starting in January, it will be the new academic María Dolores Corbella who will assume this responsibility.
