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What Is the Word of the Year?
Every December, as the calendar year draws to a close, some of the world's most respected dictionary publishers and language organizations announce their "Word of the Year" (WOTY)—a single word or expression that they believe best captures the spirit, preoccupations, or defining themes of the preceding twelve months. What began as a niche linguistic exercise has become a widely anticipated cultural event, covered by major media outlets and debated by millions on social media.
The Word of the Year is more than a publicity stunt—it's a snapshot of collective consciousness, a linguistic mirror reflecting what society was thinking, worrying about, debating, and searching for in a given year. Looking back at past selections reveals a condensed history of language change and cultural evolution, showing how new words emerge, existing words acquire new meanings, and the vocabulary of public discourse shifts in response to events.
Who Chooses the Word of the Year?
Multiple organizations independently select their own Word of the Year, and their selections often differ—reflecting different methodologies, audiences, and philosophies. The most prominent WOTY programs include:
- Merriam-Webster: America's leading dictionary publisher, selecting since 2003.
- Oxford University Press: Publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary and Oxford Dictionaries, selecting since 2004.
- Dictionary.com: One of the most popular online dictionaries, selecting since 2010.
- Cambridge Dictionary: Published by Cambridge University Press, selecting since 2015.
- American Dialect Society (ADS): The oldest Word of the Year vote in the U.S., conducted since 1990.
- Collins Dictionary: The British publisher, selecting since 2013.
- Macquarie Dictionary: Australia's national dictionary, selecting since 2006.
How Merriam-Webster Chooses Its Word
Merriam-Webster's selection process is uniquely data-driven. The word is chosen based primarily on lookup data from the merriam-webster.com website, which receives over 100 million monthly visitors. The editorial team analyzes which words saw the largest spikes in lookup activity throughout the year, with particular attention to words whose increases were driven by news events, cultural moments, or public discourse.
The winning word must meet several criteria: it needs to have shown a significant and sustained increase in lookups (not just a one-day spike), the lookups should be connected to meaningful events or cultural trends, and the word should resonate as capturing something essential about the year. The editors also consider words that showed consistent elevated interest throughout the year, even if no single spike was dramatic.
This data-driven approach gives Merriam-Webster's selection a democratic quality: it's based on what millions of real people actually wanted to know, rather than on the subjective judgment of a small committee. The resulting selections tend to be words that were "in the air" culturally—words people encountered in the news or conversation and wanted to understand more precisely.
How Oxford Chooses Its Word
Oxford's methodology combines corpus data analysis with editorial judgment. The Oxford team monitors its extensive language corpora (databases of billions of words of real-world English text) to identify words and expressions that are new, newly prominent, or newly significant. Editors track emerging vocabulary throughout the year, and a shortlist of candidates is debated before a final selection is made.
Oxford has been more willing than Merriam-Webster to select neologisms, slang, and even non-words. In 2015, Oxford controversially selected the "Face with Tears of Joy" emoji (😂) as its Word of the Year—prompting debate about whether an emoji could be considered a "word" at all. In 2016, Oxford chose "post-truth," a word that captured the political moment but was relatively obscure before the selection was announced. These bold choices have generated both praise and criticism, but they've kept Oxford's WOTY announcement among the most discussed each year.
Other Organizations and Their Selections
American Dialect Society
The ADS vote is the oldest and most linguistically rigorous WOTY selection. Held at the society's annual meeting in January, it involves a live vote by professional linguists, lexicographers, and language scholars. The ADS also votes in specialized categories including "Most Useful," "Most Creative," "Most Unnecessary," and "Most Likely to Succeed." Past ADS selections have included "tweet" (2009), "app" (2010), and the singular "they" (2015), which was selected years before it gained mainstream acceptance as a gender-neutral pronoun.
Collins Dictionary
Collins bases its selection on data from its extensive corpus of over 20 billion words, identifying words that showed the most significant increases in usage during the year. Collins tends to favor words that reflect major global events or social trends—selections like "lockdown" (2020) and "permacrisis" (2022) capture the zeitgeist with precision.
Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com combines lookup data with editorial analysis, often selecting words that reflect broader social or political themes. Their selections tend to emphasize social justice and identity-related vocabulary, reflecting their user base's interests and the broader cultural conversation.
Notable Past Winners
Looking at past Word of the Year selections reveals a condensed history of recent cultural preoccupations:
| Year | Merriam-Webster | Oxford |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | surreal | post-truth |
| 2017 | feminism | youthquake |
| 2018 | justice | toxic |
| 2019 | they (singular) | climate emergency |
| 2020 | pandemic | —(no single word selected) |
| 2021 | vaccine | vax |
| 2022 | gaslighting | goblin mode |
| 2023 | authentic | rizz |
| 2024 | polarization | brain rot |
Several patterns emerge from these selections. Crisis years produce crisis vocabulary ("pandemic," "vaccine," "lockdown"). Political upheaval generates political language ("post-truth," "polarization," "surreal"). And cultural shifts create new vocabulary that dictionaries must rush to document and define.
Cultural Significance of Word of the Year
The Word of the Year phenomenon has become significant beyond the world of lexicography. Media coverage of WOTY announcements introduces millions of people to linguistic concepts they might never otherwise encounter: how dictionaries work, how new words enter the language, and how vocabulary reflects cultural change. In this way, WOTY announcements serve as annual public lessons in the kind of etymology and word study that dictionaries have always promoted.
WOTY selections also influence public discourse. When a dictionary names a word "Word of the Year," it confers legitimacy and visibility. Words that might have been dismissed as slang or jargon gain a stamp of authority. This can accelerate the adoption of new vocabulary and help settle debates about whether a particular word is "real" or "proper."
The phenomenon has also demonstrated the public's genuine fascination with language. The millions of clicks, shares, and comments that WOTY announcements generate suggest that people care deeply about words—about what they mean, where they come from, and what they say about us as a society.
Criticisms and Limitations
Word of the Year selections are not without criticism. Skeptics have raised several objections:
- Marketing over scholarship: Some critics argue that WOTY is primarily a marketing exercise designed to generate media coverage for dictionary brands, rather than a genuine linguistic analysis.
- Selection bias: Each organization's methodology shapes its selections. Merriam-Webster's data-driven approach favors words that people don't know and need to look up, which may not be the same as words that were genuinely most important. Oxford's editorial approach introduces subjective judgment.
- Oversimplification: Can any single word truly capture the complexity of an entire year? The premise itself may be reductive.
- Recency bias: Events late in the year tend to dominate selections because they're freshest in memory.
- English-centrism: Most prominent WOTY programs focus exclusively on English, overlooking the linguistic developments of the majority of the world's languages.
These criticisms have merit, but they haven't diminished public enthusiasm for the annual ritual. If anything, the debates that WOTY selections generate are themselves valuable contributions to public discourse about language.
What Words of the Year Reveal About Us
Taken collectively, Word of the Year selections form a revealing portrait of our era. They show us reaching for language to describe new realities ("pandemic," "social distancing"), grappling with complex social concepts ("gaslighting," "post-truth," "toxic"), celebrating creativity and identity ("rizz," "they"), and trying to make sense of a rapidly changing world.
The WOTY tradition also reminds us that language is not static—it is a living, breathing system that evolves in response to human experience. Every new word is evidence of humanity's inexhaustible creativity and adaptability, its need to name the unnamed and express the previously inexpressible. The lexicographers who select these words are not just documenting language—they're documenting history, one word at a time.
Whether you find the annual WOTY announcements illuminating or overhyped, they serve an important function: they remind us to pay attention to our words. And in a world shaped increasingly by language—by the words we read, write, speak, and search for—that attention has never been more important.