Our cultural vocabulary is constantly turning over, bringing new words up from the heap and cycling them into usage. Many of these can be obnoxious ("staycation") or unpleasant ("CDOs"). Here are some I'm happy to have learned in recent years.
 

1. Cute Overload-isms
"Snorgle," "kronsche," "baroo" and more. These terms for various items of cute are both adorable and surprisingly descriptive, like "plink plink" to describe the sound of an adorable animal batting its eyelashes, an etymology which stems from old Warner Brothers cartoons and the like.
2. Herd Immunity
Discussions involving the anti-vax crowd are as infuriating as they are depressing. There may be absolutely no scientific basis for rejecting vaccinations, but we can take some comfort from the concept of "herd immunity."
If most of us are vaccinated (as most of us are, at this writing), it prevents diseases like whooping cough and measles from running completely rampant. And if you are susceptible to these diseases but unable to get vaccinated (like the elderly, or cancer patients) you rely on herd immunity to keep you safe.
 

3. Social Capital
This is a sociological concept which puts a name to a phenomenon as old as humanity itself. If you have a lot of traditional capital, you have a lot of money that you can exchange for goods and services. But if you have a lot of social capital, then you have a lot of good will and social connections which you can also exchange for goods and services.
Social capital can be thought of as a shifting combination of fame, good repute, favors owed, and social connections. Social capital not only improves your life, it also increases productivity, makes you more disaster-proof, and provides ample entertainment. It's the value that you get from participating in social networking, both online and in the real world.
 

4. Cisgender
As a liberal left-wing feminist, any day when I get to use the word "cisgender" is a good day. Cisgender is a relatively new coinage which means the opposite of "transgender." It's a way of saying "normal" that doesn't make transgendered people sound like freaks.
In other words, we're all normal. It's just that some of us are cisgender, and some of us are transgender, depending on the relationship between your birth sex and your gender.
 

5. Shibboleth
This is hardly a new word, but it's new to me. It's a Hebrew word which means something that indicates your social group or status, sort of a secret word that tips your hat. In the way that the word "cisgender" is a shibboleth for liberal left-wing feminists.