Word Evolution in Action!

Taken from here, an excerpt from a women's encyclopedia entry by Gloria Steinem about womanism:

In 1993, The American Heritage Dictionary included this new usage, and defined womanist as: "Having or expressing a belief in or respect for women and their talents and abilities beyond the boundaries of race and class; exhibiting a feminism that is inclusive esp. of Black American culture. -- n. One informed by womanist ideals. --wom an ism n." Considering the traditional definitions in such classic sources as the Oxford English Dictionary -- which illustrated womanish with the phrase, "a womanish and a whorist government," and cited womanist as a rare synonym for "womanizer,"--this recognition of change in the language was no small achievement.

Now, that's awesome. Whether Alice Walker intended to change the standard identification of the word "womanist" or "womanism" is questionable, but the result is mindblowing! (I'm a spazz, but I seriously think this is awesome. Speak to any linguist/semiotician about signs, signifiers, and the signified, or about paradigm shifts and contextuality. You'll see why I'm psyched about such a change over a relatively short time.)

This is what women can do. This is what black women can do. This is what people can do when they unify towards a great cause.

The quest now is to broaden people's vocabularies to recognize the power of this word and all words.