Word of the Year 2016

Mashable recently reported that Merriam Webster had not yet announced its Word of the Year although, by the end of November, “fascism” had been the most frequently looked up word; unhappy about this, those in charge of the dictionary are encouraging users to look up other words in an apparent effort to change the results! On the other hand, dictionaries such as Collins, Oxford, Cambridge, and dictionary.com have already announced their words of the year.

 

The Collins Word of the Year is Brexit: “The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union”. The word showed a high increase in usage, unsurprisingly, as the UK referendum results shook the world.

The Oxford Word of the Year is Post-Truth: “an adjective relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. Apparently, interest in it spiked in relation to both the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States.

The Cambridge Dictionary saw a fourfold increase in searches for its Word of the Year, paranoid: “feeling extremely nervous and worried because you believe that other people do not like you or are trying to harm you”. While the editors say they cannot be certain why readers were looking up the word, they assume it must be the uncertain times we are living in, where people no longer have faith in the institutions they have traditionally trusted. Similar words have shown similar increases: anxiety, chaos, breaking down, prejudice, bigotry, bullying, and nostalgic. On a brighter note, adorable has seen a high increase in searches as well. The editors believe readers must be trying to comfort themselves by watching videos of cute animals!

Xenophobia is dictionary.com’s Word of the Year: “fear or hatred of foreigners, people from different cultures, or strangers”. Apparently, lookups spiked by 938% just after the Brexit referendum results, on June 24. In July, searches for hate crime multiplied as newspaper coverage of hate crimes rose post-Brexit.

A snapshot from the dictionaries – a snapshot of our world today.

Wishing my readers a happier new year!