新词是新创造的词、表达或用法。它也被称为货币。并非所有新词都是全新的。有些是旧词的新用法，而另一些是现有词的新组合。他们使英语保持活力和现代性。

许多因素决定了新词是否会留在语言中。作家罗德·埃文斯（Rod L.Evans）在2012年出版的《霸王龙法》（Barannosaurus Lex）一书中说：“很少有一个词会被普遍使用，除非它与其他词非常相似。”

什么品质有助于一个新词的生存？

Susie Dent在“语言报告：2000-2007年的英语迁移”中讨论了是什么使一个新词成功，以及一个有很好机会继续使用的新词。

"In the 2000s (or the noughties, oughties, or zips), a newly minted word has had an unprecedented opportunity to be heard beyond its original creator. With 24-hour media coverage, and the infinite space of the internet, the chain of ears and mouths has never been longer, and the repetition of a new word today takes a fraction of the time it would have taken 100, or even 50, years ago. If, then, only the smallest percentage of new words make it into current dictionaries, what are the determining factors in their success?" "Very roughly speaking, there are five primary contributors to the survival of a new word: usefulness, user-friendliness, exposure, the durability of the subject it describes, and its potential associations or extensions. If a new word fulfills these robust criteria it stands a very good chance of inclusion in the modern lexicon."

何时使用新词

以下是2010年《经济学人风格指南》中关于新词何时有用的一些建议。

"Part of the strength and vitality of English is its readiness to welcome new words and expressions and to accept new meanings for old words." "Yet such meanings and uses often depart as quickly as they arrived." "Before grabbing the latest usage, ask yourself a few questions. Is it likely to pass the test of time? If not, are you using it to show just how cool you are? Has it already become a cliché? Does it do a job no other word or expression does just as well? Does it rob the language of a useful or well-liked meaning? Is it being adapted to make the writer's prose sharper, crisper, more euphonious, easier to understand—in other words, better? Or to make it seem more with it (yes, that was cool once, just as cool is cool now), more pompous, more bureaucratic or more politically correct—in other words, worse?"

英语应该摒弃新词吗？

布兰德·马修斯（Brander Matthews）在1921年出版的《英语随笔》一书中评论了禁止语言进化的观点。

"Despite the exacerbated protests of the upholders of authority and tradition, a living language makes new words as these may be needed; it bestows novel meanings upon old words; it borrows words from foreign tongues; it modifies its usages to gain directness and to achieve speed. Often these novelties are abhorrent, yet they may win acceptance if they approve themselves to the majority. This irrepressible conflict between stability and mutation and between authority and independence can be observed at all epochs in the evolution of all languages, in Greek and in Latin in the past as well as in English and in French in the present." "The belief that a language ought to be 'fixt,' that is, made stable, or in other words, forbidden to modify itself in any way, was held by a host of scholars in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were more familiar with the dead languages, in which the vocabulary is closed and in which usage is petrified, than they were with the living languages, in which there is always incessant differentiation and unending extension. To 'fix' a living language finally is an idle dream, and if could be brought about it would be a dire calamity. Luckily language is never in the exclusive control of scholars; it does not belong to them alone, as they are often inclined to believe; it belongs to all who have it as a mother-tongue."