This word was created by Sonja Lang before the publication of her book Toki Pona: The Language of Good (2014) and not included in it. It has since been recognized as essential vocabulary (nimi ku suli) by Lang in her 2021 publication The Toki Pona Dictionary.
According to Linku, this word is classified as "widespread", being used by 70% of respondents in a poll from August 2023.