“Hey wanna come over and pregame?”

This is a question that many college students may hear or say, and now, they can check the dictionary to see what “pregame means.”

This September, Merriam-Webster added 250 words to its dictionary, and “pregame” is one of them.

“Pregame has ventured from its transparent adjectival meaning into new territory: as an informal verb meaning ‘to begin drinking alcohol before an event or activity (such as a party or a night out),'” according to the website.

The website also explains how new words are chosen. For a word to be considered as an addition into the dictionary, it has to frequently be used. –

Merriam-Webster Dictionary is able to observe word usage on social media and the Internet. Eitors spend time looking through books, newspapers, magazines and electronic publications.

Editors then create “marked passages” which are inputted into a computer system and a machine readable 3” x 5” slip of paper called a citation.

A citation includes the word, an example of the word being used and information of where the word was taken from.

The more citations a word has, the better chance it has at making it into the dictionary. The definer has the option to determine which entries can remain unchanged, which entries need revision, which entries can be deleted and which new entries should be added.

“I am shocked it’s allowed in there,” UK junior Andrea Spitale said.

Mechanical engineering graduate student Steve Campbell said he was surprised the word alcohol was used in the definition.

“I figured it was similar to tailgating and eating food,” he said.