One of the words from The Simpsons has made it into the dictionary

Keeley Ryan

How cromulent.

A word first heard on the Simpsons has made it into the dictionary in the United States.

‘Embiggens’ was used in the episode ‘Lisa the Iconoclast’, which aired originally in 1996.

At one point, the children at Springfield Elementary are shown a video of the town’s founder, Jebediah Springfield.

During the footage, Springfield says:

“A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.”

The children begin to cheer, before the view switches to Mrs Krabappel and Miss Hoover standing in the back of the classroom.

Krabappel says:

“Embiggens? I never heard of that world before I moved to Springfield.”

To which Hoover replies:

“I don’t know why, it’s a perfectly cromulent word.”

And now the word, cromulent or not, has made it into the dictionary.

The Merriam-Webster Twitter account confirmed the news on Monday.

A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.

Also, 'embiggen' is now a word we enter. https://t.co/3XmkZO0ral pic.twitter.com/wLUDsWIAga

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) March 5, 2018

The definition, according to the website, is ” to make bigger or more expansive”.

Jebediah doesn’t quite get a mention, but Merriam-Webster does mark its first usage as 1996 – which is when the episode aired.

Still, people were pretty excited.

It has happened and the news embiggens us allhttps://t.co/x8Hc1muW5D

— William (John) Moore (@akajtg) March 6, 2018

https://twitter.com/_robby_d_/status/970688406517764096

THE SIMPSONS WON https://t.co/skxbIZ9dGQ

— Alex Clearfield (@AlexClearfield) March 5, 2018

https://twitter.com/Illusive_Man_1/status/970717083028938752

So, @MerriamWebster adds "embiggen" but not "cromulent"?!?!?

[Insert Marge Simpson grumble here] https://t.co/py7QGpXKm3

— John Scalzi (@scalzi) March 5, 2018

One of the Simpsons writers, Michael Price, took to Twitter to thank writer Dan Greaney – the ‘creator’ of the word.