Nyash, Amala, other Nigerian words added to Oxford Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has expanded its lexicon with the addition of new Nigerian words and expressions in its latest update, published in December 2025 and carried into 2026.

The update was announced on Wednesday via X by the OED and features widely used Nigerian and West African terms connected to food, music, everyday speech, markets and pop culture, highlighting the increasing global influence of African languages on English.

According to the OED, the December 2025 update introduced more than 500 new words, phrases and senses, while also revising over 1,000 existing entries as part of its quarterly review process.

Author and OED Head of Pronunciations, Catherine Sangster, said the update marked an important development in how pronunciations are documented across different varieties of English.

“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. We also celebrate a decade of OED having spoken pronunciations, which were first added in December 2015,” Sangster said.

She explained that the dictionary has further expanded its pronunciation features, including the use of multiple audio files where necessary, adding that new pronunciations were also recorded for several West African English entries included in the update.

Among the newly added Nigerian entries is abeg, which the OED notes can function as an interjection or adverb “to express a range of emotions, such as surprise, exasperation, disbelief, etc”.

Another addition is amala, a staple Nigerian food, 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, described 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 everyday conversations and cultural contexts across Nigeria and Ghana.

Additional African words introduced in the update are abrokyire, Adowa, ampesi, benachin, bichir, domoda, dumboy, hiplife, kpanlogo, light soup, nawetan, obroni, poda-poda and yassa.

The latest expansion builds on a similar development when the OED added 20 Nigerian words and expressions to its dictionary.

That earlier update included popular terms such as japa, agbero, eba, 419 and abi, words closely linked to 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.