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The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy introduces the term 'perreo'

The institution updates a total of 4,381 words, including new features, amendments and modifications of some definitions.

Imagen de un Diccionario de la Real Academia Española proporcionado por la institución en 2014.

(Wikimedia Commons: Real Academia Española)

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Like every year, the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy has updated and introduced new terms. This year, the word that managed to enter the literary institution's manuscript was "perreo," a term increasingly used in the Spanish language that, years later, manages to find its place in the well-known dictionary.

Defined as a "dance that is generally performed to the rhythm of reggaeton, with erotic hip movements, and in which, when danced in pairs, the man usually stands behind the woman with their bodies very close together," the word gained popularity around 1990 when the dance emerged in which "perreo" is used more.

Even then, NBC recalls, the Puerto Rican Academy of the Spanish Language tried to have the term enter the dictionary of the Spanish institution, but the genre was identified as "underground" and, therefore, the RAE discarded it. Until now. The Latin American institution continued to insist and, in the end, said Santiago Machado, director of the Royal Spanish Academy, they decided to include it during this update:

In Puerto Rico, the media has published, on the front page, words from that academy that caught my attention such as a 'perreo.' The most modern of us will know that it is a dance that is generally performed to the rhythm of reggaeton.

Other terms introduced by the Royal Spanish Academy

"Perreo" is not the only term that has managed to enter the well-known RAE Dictionary, some terms coming from other languages such as "big data,""balconing,""feng shui,""pixelar," "bracket" and "aquaplaning," among the updates that were introduced in a total of 4,381 words, including novelties, amendments and modifications of some definitions.

However, the word that most surprised to enter the dictionary is "kryptonite," since it refers to a meteorite that weakens "Superman" in the comics about the mythical superhero. A definition that is reflected in the RAE but is not the only one, since the Spanish dictionary also describes, with this term, the "person or thing that neutralizes or diminishes the main qualities of something or someone."

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