Word of the Year

Every year, Merriam-Webster releases its top searched words of the year and gives background to the sudden spike in searches. For 2019, “they” took the top spot of being Merriam-Webster’s 2019 word of the year with lookups increasing by 313% compared to 2018.
Merriam-Webster credits the rise of a certain word being searched to events in the news and with the dictionary being the primary source for information about language.
Here are the rest of the words that had sudden spikes throughout various months this year:

  • Quid pro quo
  • Impeach
  • Crawdad
  • Egregious
  • Clemency
  • The (We might have to thank “The” Ohio State University for this one)
  • Snitty
  • Tergiversation
  • Camp
  • Exculpate

I am surprised to see “crawdad” on the list. What word surprises you the most?

Photo by Pixabay
Written by
at Dec 26, 2019

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