Words from the world of technology and social media are among those picked as the “Words of the Tear 2009″ in a list commissioned by Oxford University Press.

Tweetup – noun: a meeting or other gathering organised by means of posts on the social networking service Twitter. [from tweet + up on the pattern of MEETUP].

Hashtag – noun: a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets.

Tag cloud – noun: a visual depiction of the word content of a website, or of user-generated tags attached to online content, typically using colour and font size to represent the prominence or frequency of the words or tags depicted.

Slashdot effect – noun: the slowing down or crashing of a small website due to a huge increase in traffic when the website is linked to another, much more popular one.

Unfriend/defriend – verb: to remove from one’s ‘friends’ list (e.g. on a social networking website).

Bossnapping – noun: (in France) the prevention of senior managers from leaving company premises for a period of time by their employees, in order to protest about large-scale redundancies and cutbacks.

Zombie bank – noun: a financial institution whose liabilities are greater than its assets, but which continues to operate because of government support.

Geoengineering/ecohacking – noun: the deliberate large-scale manipulation of an environmental process that affects the earth’s climate, in an attempt to counteract the effects of global warming.
Jeggings – plural noun: close-fitting leggings made of fabric that resembles denim in appearance [from jeans + leggings].

Minute mentoring – noun: a system of advising aspiring professionals based on the format of speed-dating.

Phantonym – noun: a word that looks as it if means one thing but in fact means something quite different. [from ‘phantom + antonym] (for example fulsome, used by President Obama to mean ‘full’, when in fact it is now chiefly used in reference to excessive flattery).

Staycation – noun: a holiday spent in one’s home country rather than abroad, or one spent at home and involving day trips to local attractions.

Simples – exclamation: used to say that something is very easy to achieve [from the 'compare the meerkat' TV advert].

Great Recession – noun: term for the current recession, modelled on the Great Depression.

Freemium – noun: a business model in which some basic services are provided for free, with the aim of enticing users to pay for additional, premium features or content.

Paywall – noun: a way of blocking access to a part of a website which is only available to paying subscribers.