Notes on OED's June 2007 release of new words

A. N. Other n.

This formula, dating back to 1884, is used in place of a person's name when the actual name is unknown, withheld, or not yet determined (as in a sporting squad for which not all players have been selected). Unlike other names used for this and similar purposes-John (or Jane) Doe, Joe Bloggs, and so on, which use proper names considered common-it is a conscious alteration of a common noun (in the grammatical sense), another, so that it resembles initials and a surname, a highly unusual type of formation.

chill pill n.

A slang term deriving from another slang term (chill v., to relax, take it easy), it is often hard to tell in early evidence if an actual pill is meant, especially as (perhaps unsurprisingly) the term seems to have arisen in the culture of narcotics. Now, more often than not, no glass of water is necessary to wash down a chill pill: it is used in imprecatory phrases simply meaning "calm down, relax".

fattoush n.

Middle Eastern cuisine has become increasingly popular in the English-speaking world in the last ten or twenty years, but as the entry shows people have spoken of fattoush in English since 1955. As culinary cosmopolitanism continues apace, loan words from other languages which first arrive in English via menus are a common type of new word.

prime time n./1

A nice example of an important aspect of the work of adding new words to OED online: older material which pre-dates or sheds light on the coverage OED2 was able to provide. The familiar broadcasting sense of prime time, well covered by OED2, derives from a different source (prime adj.), and is antedated by this medieval use (from prime n./1), which is now long obsolete but enjoyed around 135 years of usage, and means "the hour or time of the daily Christian office of prime".