Definition updated to include people who identify as a gender other than their biological sex
The Cambridge Dictionary has updated the English definitions of “woman” and “man” to make them more inclusive. People who identify as a gender other than their biological sex are now part of the definition as well.
The definition of a woman now includes “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth”. The definition of a man now incorporates “an adult who lives and identifies as male though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth”.
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The dictionary also includes examples of its usage. “She was the first trans woman elected to a national office” and “Mary is a woman who was assigned male at birth”.
The dictionary’s editors made the changes after studying patterns of how the word “woman” was being used across society and concluded that the new definition is one that English learners “should be aware of”, the British daily The Telegraph reported.
The editors made the addition to the entry for woman in October, said a spokesperson for the dictionary, reported The Telegraph UK.
“They carefully studied usage patterns of the word ‘woman’ and concluded that this definition is one that learners of English should be aware of to support their understanding of how the language is used,” the spokesperson said.
The first definition at the entry for woman remains unchanged and continues to be “an adult female human being”. “Our dictionaries are written for learners of English and are designed to help users understand English as it is currently used,” the spokesperson added.
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Cambridge is not the first dictionary to update the definition. In 2020, the Oxford English Dictionary updated its definition of the word woman following complaints that the definition was “sexist”, according to the news website RepublicWorld.
The earlier definition in the Oxford English Dictionary included the phrase “a man’s wife, girlfriend or lover.” The dictionary rephrased it to “a person’s wife, girlfriend or female lover”.
Merriam-Webster dictionary in July added a supplementary definition of “female” that defines the term as “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male”, according to The Telegraph UK report.
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