It’s official! The acronym MAMILs – middle-aged men in Lycra – has made it onto a list of new words and phrases released today by Oxford University Press, publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary.

It appears on a list of new words and phrases including lolcat, Obamacare and tomoz in an update published today on Oxforddictionaries.com.

Here’s the definition of ‘MAMIL’ (which can also be styled ‘Mamil’):

NOUN (plural MAMILs)

British informal

A middle-aged man who is a very keen road cyclist, typically one who rides an expensive bike and wears the type of clothing associated with professional cyclists:

'he spends his weekend mornings cycling with other MAMILs'

'this is as close to a professional peloton as any MAMIL will ever get'

Oxforddictionaries.com gives the word’s origin as: “Early 21st century: acronym from middle-aged man in Lycra (from the proprietary term for a type of fabric or fibre used to make close-fitting sportswear); the term was apparently first used in Australia with reference to a particular type of male swimmer.”

However, the first use we saw of it in a cycling context came in a consumer research report on the UK bicycle market published by the market research firm Mintel in August 2010, which highlighted growing numbers of well-off middle-agers, often professionals, taking to bicycles.

The report’s author, Michael Oliver, said at the time: "Thirty or 40 years ago, people would ride a bike for economic reasons, but our research suggests that nowadays a bicycle is more a lifestyle addition, a way of demonstrating how affluent you are."

To employ anoher new word (in its adjectival sense) the term MAMIL can evoke Marmite feelings among the cycling community, some wearing it as a badge of honour, others using it pejoratively to describe a certain kind of “all the gear but no idea” arriviste to the sport.