‘Satoshi’, Bitcoin’s Smallest Unit, Added To The Oxford English Dictionary

16/10/2019

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language.

With a guide to meaning, history and pronunciation of over 600,000 words and 3.5 million quotations, OED boasts 150 years of collecting English words that range from classic literature and specialist periodicals, to film scripts and even cookery books.

And here, it has added 'Satoshi', which is Bitcoin's smallest unit, into its database.

In an update published on OED's blog, it was noted that the word is the most recent addition to its dictionary in September 2019, added to the dictionary after it was publicly used for at least seven years:

"New additions this September cover a lot of ground [...] a satoshi is the smallest monetary unit in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, and is named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the—probably pseudonymous—developer(s) of Bitcoin."
Satoshi added to the Oxford English Dictionary
Satoshi added to the Oxford English Dictionary, seven years after it was first used

Satoshi is a hundred millionth of a single Bitcoin (0.00000001 BTC). This makes the unit the smallest that can be recorded on the Bitcoin currency's blockchain.

This isn't the first time that reputable English-language dictionaries include words that are part of the cryptocurrency industry jargon.

Previously in 2013, OED added "Bitcoin" as a word, defining it as "a digital currency in which transactions can be performed without the need for a central bank."

Then a year later in 2014, the Oxford Dictionary Online, the world’s arbiter on what is and isn’t English, accepted "cryptocurrency" as a word, defining it as "a digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, operating independently of a central bank."

Additionally, Bitcoin has been named 2017 Term of the Year by investment encyclopedia-like online learning resource Investopedia.