It is usually applied to the airport novels of Jackie Collins, Harold Robbins and Jilly Cooper - with their breathy descriptions of sexual antics.

But the term "bonkbuster", which yesterday gained official recognition as part of the English language, actually originates from the less salacious pages of the Guardian.

The revelation came as the Oxford English Dictionary added the phrase, along with 1,763 other new and revised entries, to OED Online. Defining it as: "Bonkbuster, n. Chiefly Brit. (colloq and humorous). A type of popular novel characterised by frequent sexual encounters between the characters", it adds that it was "popularised by the British writer Sue Limb (b. 1946), writing under the pseudonym 'Dulcie Domum', in her humorous newspaper column 'Bad Housekeeping'."

Limb, who has written more than 20 books, penned the column for the Guardian Weekend section for 11 years until April 2001. A gentle satire, it charted the life of Dulcie, who shares a house with her ex-spouse and copes with tending to his great aunt and her petulant daughter Harriet. Bored with rural life, she also tries her hand at writing a steamy novel, relaying, as early as 1988: "Publisher... [inquires] about progress of blockbuster. Or as spouse now refers to it, bonk-buster...

Yesterday, Limb, who now gives life to Dulcie online, was modest in accepting she had added a new word to the language. "It's an unexpected event. People keep telling me I've made my place in history so I can happily die now."

She came up with the word after a publisher asked if she could write "a big, thick book with lots of bonking in it.

"I couldn't oblige, but I always play around with words and it was an easy step from blockbuster to bonkbuster."