Both “skibidi” and “delulu” have been added to the Cambridge Dictionary, and if you don’t know what those words mean, congratulations, you’re likely an adult with bills to pay and better things to do. Good on you.
In case it wasn’t clear, both words are inventions of folks — younger people, more often — who spend too much time on the internet. Still, it might be worth learning the definitions of such words, since the internet is increasingly the IRL world. And spending too much time on the internet is pretty much what we do here at Mashable.
Funnily enough, the dictionary basically defined skibidi as gibberish. It referred to skibidi as “a word that can have different meanings, such as ‘cool’ or ‘bad’, or can be used with no real meaning as a joke.” It’s the internet’s unserious version of Philly’s “jawn,” a word that can effectively replace any noun.
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We’ve covered the whole Skibidi phenomenon at Mashable. It takes its roots from a nonsensical YouTube series called “Skibidi Toilet,” popular among Gen Alpha. It all effectively traces back to a cartoonish head swirling around a toilet bowl. And now it’s in the Cambridge dictionary.
Skibidi is far from the only new word recognized by Cambridge, however. There’s “delulu,” which is definitionally identical to delusional, except the word is shortened to be silly and less serious. The dictionary also added internet-born words like “tradwife” — a “traditional” wife online who does household chores for the camera — and “broligarcy,” which references powerful, often tech-adjacent men who run in overly influential circles.
Language changes over time, and the internet seems to only speed up that process. It makes sense our dictionaries would shift with it. It’s very skibidi, etc.
