Dictionary.com, the online dictionary launched in 1995, features thousands of English words and their meanings. It has been announced that Wakanda, the home to Black Panther, has been given an official entry into the dictionary.
As many fans in the MCU know, King T’Chaka, and later the Black Panther—King T’Challa—ruled over Wakanda, located in Eastern Africa. Wakanda is well known in the MCU for its advancements in the realm of technology as well as its abundant stock of the highly sought-after element, Vibranium. Vibranium is considered somewhat of a miracle metal in the MCU due to its being considered to have almost limitless uses.
Image: Collider
There is also the fact that Wakanda plays home to one of the most formidable military forces know in the world, the Dora Milaje. The force is heralded by many as having produced some of the most fierce warriors the MCU has ever seen.
The entry in Dictionary.com for Wakanda is under the Pop Culture section. The entry defines the country as “the home to the Marvel Comics superhero the Black Panther.”
There is also the inclusion of a nod to the actor who portrayed the Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman, who recently lost a long battle to colon cancer. The entry makes note of Boseman’s role and emphasizes how he aided in the popularization of the now-massive movement “Wakanda Forever” as a “gesture of Black excellence.”
Image: NBC News
At the very bottom of the page where the entry is located, Dictionary.com also has the additional entry that it is “not meant to be a formal definition of Wakanda,” but more of an “informal word summary.” Although Dictionary.com has put together, to the best of its ability, a definitive meaning of the word, the disclaimer was a good move on its part.
In the end, Wakanda will always be one of those terms, or concepts, that transcends definition, and as such means far more than any description that can be given to it, for far more people.