Ever been so hungry, you start to get angry? You’re not alone. The feeling, often described as hangry, is now an official word according to the Oxford English Dictionary’s latest update.
Hangry (also hangriest and hangrier) is defined as “bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger.” The word is a blend of “hungry” and “angry,” according to OED. And while you might have only noticed the word being used more recently, it actually dates back several decades.
“It is only in the 21st century that the word hangry, a blend of hungry and angry used colloquially to mean ‘bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger,’ has entered common use. However, the earliest known evidence for the word dates from 1956, in an unusual article in the psychoanalytic journal American Imago that describes various kinds of deliberate and accidental wordplay,” Head of U.S. Dictionaries, Katherine Connor Martin, explained in a statement.
“The author mentions hangry in a discussion of words formed by contraction or elision. Some of these, like brunch, were already established at the time, but most of them, such as criumph (a crime triumph), and sexperience (sexual experience) have still not caught on with the English-speaking public,” Martin added.
An example of hangry is perfectly illustrated in Snicker’s popular campaign, “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”
Along with hangry, 1,100 new entries were added to the dictionary. Others include “mansplain,” “me time” and “swag.”
In order for an entry to qualify, OED requires several independent examples of it being used, Delish reports. Researchers for the dictionary then have to consult with experts when deciding if the term should be added.
