Oxford Dictionaries add Harry Potter game 'quidditch' as new word

The name of a fantasy game from the popular Harry Potter franchise has been added to the Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford Dictionaries is part of Oxford University Press, a department of the University of Oxford. Its official Twitter handle announced the inclusion of “quidditch” on Tuesday.

We added 'quidditch' to the dictionary today! https://t.co/aPkVD8Wlnh pic.twitter.com/kPpQShiPbX

— Oxford Dictionaries (@OxfordWords) April 11, 2017

Oxford Dictionaries defines quidditch as “a team sport played while straddling broomsticks, in which goals are scored by throwing a ball through any of three hoops fixed at either end of the pitch.” The word originated from the name of a magical game described in J K Rowling's 1997 novel "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", on which the sport is based. Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels which consists of eight fantasy films. The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words.