‘Amala’, ‘nyash’, ‘mammy market’ among Nigerian words added to Oxford Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary has added several Nigerian-origin words which include Amala, Nyash and mammy market in its latest update, reflecting the growing global influence of the nation’s language, culture and cuisine.
Penpushing reports that the December 2025 update, released on the OED website on Wednesday, features more than 500 new words, phrases and senses, including internet slang such as “DM”, “brainfart” and “chug”.
The update equally showed over 1,000 existing entries were revised, while editors explored the histories of words such as “troll”, “coffee” and “snooker”, while the update includes additions from varieties of English used around the world.
Penpushing further reports that these including West African English, Maltese English, Japanese English and South Korean English, with OED editors noting the growing global influence of these Englishes.
The Nigerian entries are everyday expressions and food items, including “nyash,” “mammy market,” “amala,” “moi moi,” “abeg,” “biko,” and “Ghana Must Go.”, while the update equally included “Afrobeats”, defined as “a style of popular music incorporating elements of West African music and of jazz, soul, and funk.”
Penpushing also reports that the dictionary describes “abeg” as an interjection used to express contextually a range of emotions, such as surprise, exasperation, disbelief, while “Biko”, originally from the Igbo language, is defined as an adverb and interjection used in polite request or agreement, or to add polite emphasis or urgency: ‘please’.”
The slang “Nyash” is defined as “a person’s (esp. a woman’s) buttocks; the bottom, the backside.”, while “Ghana Must Go”, the popular name for the large, chequered plastic bags widely used in West Africa, whose expression traces back to the 1983 mass expulsion of undocumented Ghanaian migrants from Nigeria.
Penpushing reports that it is defined as “A large, zippered bag made of durable plastic with a colourful check pattern, often used for carrying one’s’, while the term “mammy market” was recognised as “a market typically run by women, originally found in military barracks but later also in youth service camps and educational institutions.”
The update showed that in the category of cuisine, the dictionary included “amala”, a staple food made from yam or cassava flour, defined as “a kind of dough made of yam, cassava, or unripe plantain flour, typically formed into a ball and served as an accompaniment to other dishes” and “moi moi”, a dish originating among the Yoruba people, “consisting of beans ground into a smooth paste, mixed with peppers, onions, dried…”
Penpushing further reports that the Oxford English Dictionary expanded its lexicon with 20 Nigerian words and expressions in a January 2025 update, highlighting the influence of Nigerian English, Pidgin and street slang on global vocabulary.
The additions included everyday terms such as japa, agbero, eba, a staple food made from cassava flour, while other entries such as 419, referring to internet fraud, and abi, a common conversational tag, also made the list.
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