Release on June 2 is part of the centenary celebrations running throughout the year.
A new dictionary featuring Roald Dahl’s swashboggling words is released tomorrow (June 2), forming part of the celebrations around the century of the author’s birth.
The dictionary has taken five years to compile, and features almost 8,000 real words – and invented ones.
The Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary was compiled by lexicographer, Dr Susan Rennie, and also features illustrator Quentin Blake.
As well as swashboggling (which means ‘very special’), it also includes the likes of phiz-whizzing (if you like something or someone), wondercrump (wonderful or splendiferous), flushbunking (makes no sense whatsoever) and squishous (very easy to squish).
Luke Kelly, md of the Roald Dahl Literary Estate, and Roald Dahl’s grandson, said: “Roald Dahl’s inventive, playful use of language is a key element to his writing, so it is wonderful to have this dictionary compiled with such expertise, passion, and wit.
“I hope it serves as a swashboggling source of inspiration for a whole new generation of storytellers.”
Dr Rennie told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Children use Dahl’s words a lot in their own writing and also create words inspired by the way he built words.
“He sometimes pulled the syllables of words apart and rebuilt them, combined them, and we can see children doing that in their own writing.”
