The word “vuvuzela” has only been in common use since the summer when the long horn began to be heard at the World Cup matches in South Africa.  It is one of more than 2,000 new words and phrases included in the dictionary for the first time.

Other newcomers include: tweetup (a meeting arranged through Twitter); cheeseball (lacking taste or style); and a turducken (a roast dish consisting of a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey). Two of the greatest influences on current language have been the internet and the financial crisis.

Paywall (which restricts website access only to subscribers), microblogging (posting short entries on a blog), netbook, viral and defriend have all arrived in our language because of the internet.

The financial world has also provided a host of new words including toxic debt, deleveraging (reducing debt by quickly selling assets), overleveraged, quantitative easing and staycation (a holiday spent in your home country). Many of these were words that, in the past, were only used by economists and City experts, but which have now crept into normal parlance.

The world of national and global politics has contributed a number of new words and phrases including exit strategy, the fog of war, a surge (of troops), overthinking, catatrophizing (presenting a situation as considerably worse than it actually is) and soft skills (personal attributes that let you interact harmoniously with others).

Other new entries are :  wardrobe malfunction : when someone exposes an intimate part of their body after clothing slips;  chill pill: a notional pill to make someone calm;  bromance : a close but non-sexual relationship between two men;  LBD (little black dress). This refers to the simple evening or cocktail dress that, it is claimed, should be part of every womans wardrobe; and  frenemy : a person that one is friendly with despite a fundamental dislike.

See: Telegraph.co.uk