I tried to find out the origin of “terminator” and entered the word in the search box on the Cambridge dictionaries online as shown below:

What the hell . . . !?
That was my first reaction. I paid a close attention to my spelling, which seemed all right and turned out absolutely correct.
As you see, however, the dictionary has not listed it yet.
I could hardly believe this. The Cambridge Dictionaries are supposed to be among the best dictionaries.

I went right straight to the Google.com search and entered the word. The results are as follows:

More than 1.5 million hits! This indicates that at least 1.5 million people know the word and have used it at least once in their lifetime. I don’t understand why the editors overlooked this word. Did they ignore this or simply forget it?

Or am I dreaming or what?   So, to be on the safe side, I looked up the word in my dictionary—The Random House College Dictionary (published in 1975). It DOES include the word.

On the spur of the moment, I come up with a similar word—exterminator, and then enter it on the same dictionary search. The results are as follows:

It is exceptionally strange! “Exterminator” is listed, but not “terminator”. I’ve spent more than enough time on coming up with a reasonable reason for this, and eventually come to my conclusion that all the editors have, by some peculiar coincidence, overlooked this word. Well, you would probably agree that nobody is perfect and that, therefore, this kind of reckless mistake takes place once in a . . . well . . . lifetime.

If you want to try it by yourself, click the following link: Cambridge Dictionary of American English.

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