RAE presents 24th dictionary edition, first born digital, with 99,990 articles

A digital-first dictionary

The Real Academia Española (RAE) presented the 24th edition of the Diccionario de la lengua española in Madrid on 30 October 2026. It is the first edition conceived as a native digital work, so the printed volumes derive from the digital database rather than the reverse. Director Santiago Muñoz Machado presented it as a foundation for the dictionaries of the future, saying:

“It is the birth certificate of the dictionaries of the future.”

The paper version returns to bookshops twelve years after the previous printed edition, published in 2014. Espasa is publishing the set in two volumes, though sources differ on length: La Vanguardia gives 3,606 pages, while Muñoz Machado's interview with La Razón gives 3,672. In that interview he said dictionary sales have fallen steeply and that the new print run is deliberately contained rather than expansive. A small group of people and institutions still wants a copy, and the academy keeps its attachment to paper.

What the edition contains

The academy's figures list 99,990 articles and nearly 209,000 meanings, with 54,829 etymologies and 85,201 usage examples. Further counts include 24,708 multiword forms, 23,255 meanings marked for a technical field and 20,672 meanings marked for American countries. The edition is described as recording the most general Spanish currently in use across all Spanish-speaking countries.

Articles99,990

Meanings209,000

Etymologies54,829

Usage examples85,201

Multiword forms24,708

Technical-field meanings23,255

American-country meanings20,672

Articles

99990

Meanings

209000

Etymologies

54829

Usage examples

85201

Multiword forms

24708

Technical-field meanings

23255

American-country meanings

20672

Data from the article text

Figures for new material differ between outlets. EL PAÍS reports more than 6,000 new entries, while Diario ABC says the edition adds almost 7,000 entries over the 93,000 in the 2014 edition.

2014 edition93,000

24th edition99,990

2014 edition

93000 entries

24th edition

99990 entries

Data from the article text

New words and meanings

Technology accounts for many additions, including IA, ciberataque, ciberseguridad, renderizar, QR, metaverso and influencer. Environmental and social entries include basuraleza, the waste left in natural settings, ecoansiedad, anxiety caused by environmental decline and climate change, turistificación, the mass influx of visitors, and gordofobia. Everyday usage has also made it in: porfa, short for por favor, cumple, short for cumpleaños, and petricor, the smell of wet earth. The musical-instrument sense of cajón, widely used in flamenco, enters marked as a Peruanism after a proposal at a plenary session of the RAE, which sent the definition to the Academia Peruana de la Lengua. Diario ABC says half of the additions are Americanisms, including chambitas (Mexico), cholulo (Argentina) and guarifaifa (Chile).

Origins in the 1726 dictionary

The new edition coincides with the tricentenary of the first volume of the Diccionario de Autoridades, published in 1726 in a set of six volumes that ran to 1739. The founding members made three basic decisions that shaped the method for three centuries. They chose their sources by rereading the best literature and legislation, which served as authorities for each word, and they left technical terms out of account. They also decided to include popular and vulgar language alongside the cultivated lexicon, and to record speech from Castile and from the other kingdoms, provinces and territories.

The presentation

The presentation opened with a minute of silence for the victims of the train accident in Toledo. Muñoz Machado said the academy built the dictionary with the digital edition in mind, and he framed the print copy as a derivation of that version:

“We made it thinking about the digital edition, not the printed one.”

The printed version can expand without space limits, adding etymologies, synonyms, antonyms and usage examples to each entry. The digital base also holds the whole vocabulary of present-day Spanish, along with more words, introductions and entries, and it can be used to derive other works.