Word that baffled Race Across the World producers added to dictionary
What new Welsh words have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary?
A word which baffled the producers of the latest series of Race Across the World is among 10 Welsh words to be added to the Oxford English Dictionary in its latest update.
Fin Gough and Sioned Cray, from Nantgaredig in Carmarthenshire, had to explain the definition of the word poody, meaning to sulk.
Other Welsh words added in the September update of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) include nobbling, meaning freezing, and scram, similar to scratch.
A total of 500 new words or senses have been added in this update.
BBC/Studio Lambert
Fin Gough and Sioned Cray confused Race Across the World producers with the word poody earlier this year
Poody is an example of a reborrowing or boomerang word, the OED said, meaning it had been borrowed from English into another language and then back again.
It comes from the Welsh pwdu, meaning to sulk, which itself originated with the English word pout, combined with the Welsh verb-forming suffix -u. It can also be used as a noun.
Fin and Sioned used the word on the 2025 series of BBC One’s Race Across the World, where five teams of pairs race thousands of miles on a limited budget without the use of flights.
The teenage couple were talking about themselves to producers before setting off when Sioned said “we always bicker, I might be a bit poody”.
A producer off camera then repeats the word back to them in a questioning tone, to which Sioned says “do you not say poody” and Fin adds: “You don’t know what poody is? Everyone in Wales knows poody.”
The pair went on to finish third in the race which started north of Beijing on the Great Wall of China and finished about 8,700 miles (14,000km) away in Kanniyakumari, the southernmost tip of India.
Other Welsh words in the latest update of the OED include nobbling and scram.
“If a Welsh person advises you to wrap up warm because it’s nobbling, then they are letting you know that it’s very cold outside,” said the OED.
While scram is an 18th and 19th-Century northern English verb meaning to scrape, rake, or pull together with the hands.
Although it is obsolete in this sense, the verb survives in Welsh English in the sense of to scratch, especially with claws or fingernails, along with the noun use, to scratch.
Allow TikTok content?This article contains content provided by
TikTok
. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read
and
before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.
Additional Welsh words in the latest update include diolch (thank you), nos da (good night), croeso (welcome) and shwmae (hello or hi).
Shwmae has variable pronunciation and spelling depending on whether speakers are from north and south Wales.
New Welsh words in the OED
croesodiolchnobbling nos dapoody (noun)poody (verb) scram (noun) scram (verb) shwmae Welsh hat
