It is a massive, shifting pile of data. If you’ve ever tried to flip through a physical copy of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), you know that "all the words in the dictionary" isn’t just a list—it’s a snapshot of a moving target. Language doesn't sit still long enough for a printer to finish its job.
Honestly, the idea that there is a "complete" set of English words is a bit of a myth.
The second edition of the OED contains roughly 600,000 words. That sounds like a lot. It is a lot. But even that gargantuan number is basically a lie by omission. It doesn’t count the hundreds of thousands of scientific terms, regional slangs, or the "nonce words" that people invent for a single joke and then forget. Every year, lexicographers at Merriam-Webster and Oxford have to decide which new sounds we’ve started making with our mouths deserve a permanent home in the archives. It’s a gatekeeping job that would drive most people crazy.
The Myth of the Final Count
You’ve probably heard people say English has the largest vocabulary of any language. Maybe. It’s hard to prove because how do you count? Do you count "run," "runs," "running," and "ran" as one word or four? Most dictionaries count them as one "lemma" or headword. If we counted every variation, the number would skyrocket into the millions.
The Global Language Monitor once claimed English hit the one-million-word mark back in 2009. Most actual linguists, like the late, great Geoffrey Nunberg, rolled their eyes at that. It was a marketing stunt. You can't just set a counter and wait for someone in a corner of the internet to type a new typo and call it a word.
Words aren't just strings of letters. They are social contracts.
A word becomes "real" when enough of us agree on what it means. Take "rizz." A few years ago, it didn't exist in any formal capacity. Now, it’s the Oxford Word of the Year for 2023. It moved from Twitch chats to the mouths of middle schoolers to the hallowed halls of lexicography in record time. This is how the dictionary breathes. It’s an inhale of new culture and a very slow, reluctant exhale of the obsolete.
Why some words get the axe
Dictionaries have limited real estate—at least the paper ones do. Even digital versions need to maintain some sense of authority. If they included every single misspelling or "leetspeak" variation from gaming forums, the tool would become useless.
Lexicographers look for three things:
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- Widespread use. Is it just you and your three friends saying it?
- Sustained use. Will people still be saying this in five years?
- Meaningful use. Does it fill a gap that other words don't?
Take the word "snollygoster." It refers to a shrewd, unprincipled person, usually a politician. It was dropped from some dictionaries because people stopped using it. Then, Bill O'Reilly started using it on TV in the early 2000s, and it found its way back in. It was a literal resurrection.
All the Words in the Dictionary vs. The Words We Actually Use
Here is the kicker: the average English speaker only uses about 20,000 to 30,000 words. We are essentially living in a mansion with 600,000 rooms but choosing to sleep, eat, and hang out in the same small hallway.
Why? Efficiency.
If I tell you I’m "tired," you know exactly what I mean. If I tell you I’m "exanimate," you might think I’m having a stroke. We use a tiny fraction of all the words in the dictionary because language is a tool for connection, not just a way to show off. However, the "long tail" of the dictionary is where the magic is. It’s where you find words like "apricity" (the warmth of the sun in winter) or "petrichor" (the smell of earth after rain).
We don't need these words to survive, but they make the world feel more specific.
The gatekeepers of English
Unlike French, which has the Académie Française—a group of "immortals" who try to protect the language from "impurities" like English loanwords—English is a total free-for-all. We don't have an official governing body.
The dictionary isn't a rulebook; it’s a history book.
When people get mad that "irregardless" is in the dictionary, they’re misunderstanding what a dictionary is for. Merriam-Webster isn't saying "irregardless" is a good word. They are simply documenting that people use it. It’s descriptive, not prescriptive. If a significant number of people start using "banana" to mean "frustrated," the dictionary will eventually have to list that definition. That's just how the game works.
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Technical Terms and the "Dark Matter" of Language
If you look at the sheer volume of words, the majority are actually technical. Biology, chemistry, and law account for a huge percentage of the total count. These are "dark matter" words. They exist, they have definitions, but you will never hear them in a grocery store.
Take the chemical name for the protein titin. It is 189,819 letters long. It would take you roughly three hours to say it. Is it one of the words in the dictionary? Most dictionaries say no. They draw the line at "common sense." If a word is just a formulaic string of chemical parts, it’s a formula, not a word.
Then there are the "ghost words."
In 1934, the word "dord" appeared in the New Webster’s International Dictionary. It was defined as a synonym for density. Years later, an editor realized "dord" wasn't a word at all. It was a misreading of "D or d," a notation for density. For years, people were looking at a ghost. These mistakes happen because dictionaries are made by humans, and humans are messy.
Digital expansion and the end of "Z"
In the old days, the letter Z was the end. You hit zymurgy and you were done.
Today, the digital dictionary is infinite. Urban Dictionary has over 8 million entries. While most of it is nonsense or inside jokes, it represents the actual "living" dictionary of the 21st century. It captures the slang of the marginalized, the hyper-local dialects of internet subcultures, and the weird evolution of emojis as punctuation.
Wait—are emojis words?
In 2015, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year wasn't a word at all. It was the "Face with Tears of Joy" emoji. People lost their minds. But linguistically, it functioned exactly like a word. It conveyed a specific, agreed-upon meaning. If the goal of the dictionary is to track how we communicate, ignoring emojis is becoming harder and harder to justify.
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How to Actually "Learn" the Dictionary
Don't try to read it cover to cover. You'll hit the letter A and get stuck in a loop of "ab-" prefixes that will bore you to tears.
Instead, look for the "lost" words. The English language is a graveyard of perfectly good words that we just stopped using for no reason.
- Uhtceare: Lying awake before dawn, worrying. (We definitely still do this).
- Gnashgab: Someone who complains all the time.
- Crapulous: Feeling sick from eating or drinking too much.
The value of having access to all the words in the dictionary isn't about memorizing a list. It’s about finding the right "key" for the lock in your brain. Sometimes you have a feeling you can't describe, and then you find the word for it, and suddenly that feeling belongs to you. It’s calibrated.
Semantic Satiation and the Weirdness of Words
If you stare at any word in the dictionary for more than thirty seconds, it starts to look fake. This is called semantic satiation. The "shape" of the word separates from its meaning. You start to realize that "table" is just a weird collection of sticks and circles.
This reminds us that language is an invention. We made it all up. Every single word in that 20-pound book was once a sound a human made for the very first time. Someone was the first person to say "bamboozle." Someone was the first to say "skeleton."
We are currently in a massive "neologism" boom. Between AI-generated slang and the rapid-fire meme cycles of TikTok, we are creating words faster than any other time in human history. The "dictionary" is struggling to keep up.
Moving Toward a Better Vocabulary
If you want to move beyond the standard 20,000 words, the best way isn't an app or a "word of the day" calendar. It’s reading "difficult" books. Writers like Vladimir Nabokov or Toni Morrison used the full palette of English. They didn't just use the words everyone knows; they reached into the dusty corners of the dictionary and pulled out gems.
Actionable Steps for Navigating the Lexicon:
- Stop using "very." Instead of "very tired," use spent. Instead of "very happy," use jubilant. This forces you to engage with the specific synonyms that hide in the dictionary.
- Check the etymology. Don't just look at what a word means; look at where it came from. Knowing that "clue" originally meant a ball of thread (used to find your way out of a maze) makes the word stick better.
- Read the front matter. If you have a physical dictionary, read the "Note to the User." It explains the philosophy of the editors. It tells you why they chose the words they did.
- Embrace the new. Don't be a language snob. If a new word like "doomscrolling" accurately describes a modern behavior, use it. The dictionary is a living organism. If you try to keep it "pure," you’re just helping it die.
The dictionary isn't a cage for language. It’s a map. And like any map of a changing coastline, it needs to be redrawn constantly. You are one of the cartographers. Every time you use a word in a new way, or invent a slang term that catches on in your office, you are contributing to the massive, messy, beautiful project of the English language.
Go find a word today that you've never heard before. Use it in a sentence. Even if you use it wrong, you’re participating in the oldest human tradition: trying to be understood.