Word of the Year 2018

A look at the past year’s English words of the year sheds light on people’s current interests and concerns globally. Merriam Webster’s words of the year included justice as the most frequently looked up word – and one whose hits rose by 74% over 2017. According to the dictionary’s web site, the popularity of the term reflects U.S. concerns with all kinds of justice – racial, social, criminal and economic. Additionally, the Department of Justice has frequently been in the news, besides the use of justice as a synonym for judge, as in the Supreme Court’s Cavanaugh hearings.

The Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year was toxic. Not only had it been looked up 45% more than the previous year, it had also developed new meanings, spanning a broad variety of contexts: “The Oxford Word of the Year is a word or expression that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the passing year, and have lasting potential as a term of cultural significance.” Including both literal and metaphorical senses, the term had been applied to the following ten contexts, in order of frequency, based on the Oxford Corpus:

· Chemical

· Masculinity

· Substance

· Gas

· Environment

· Relationship

· Culture

· Waste

· Algae

· Air

The Collins Dictionary chose single-use as word of the year as it had seen a four-fold rise since 2013. The term refers to products, especially plastics, that are used only once rather than recycled, such as straws, bottles and bags. Images of plastic items floating in the oceans became popular on television this past year, with channels such as the BBC raising awareness on the issue. Another term that was high on the list for Collins also reflected environmental concerns: plogging, derived from Swedish, meaning picking up garbage while jogging.

Finally, the Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year based on a public poll was nomophobia: “fear or worry at the idea of being without your mobile phone or unable to use it.” A runner-up was ecocide, emphasizing people’s environmental concerns. The dictionary editors had chosen the most popular new additions to the dictionary then asked their online readers to vote. The result was therefore referred to as the “People’s Word of 2018."