Merriam Webster's Words of the Year Quiz

Answer: Democracy

Democracy ultimately derives from 'demokratia' ('popular government' in Greek) which in turn derives from 'demos' (common people) and 'kratos' (rule). The word was searched more frequently on the website due to the Iraq war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.

The president of Merriam-Webster, John Morse, noted that "the most frequently looked up words are not the newest words, not the latest high-tech terms, not the cool new slang." In alternatives like the Oxford or Collins lists, the words selected tend to be much more likely to be said 'cool new slang'.

Answer: Blog

The word blog is a portmanteau of web and log and is somewhat similar to an online diary. As access to the internet improved, people found that blogs were one way of sharing their innermost thoughts with the world.

Cosplay is a portmanteau of costume and play, emoticon is emotion and icon, and email is electronic mail.

Answer: Integrity

Integrity can also describe the quality of being incorruptible, a trait which many people in 2005 apparently did not share. On the 6th October, an alleged sex party took place between seventeen members of the Minnesota Vikings and at least ninety prostitutes.

The ongoing Plame affair (or CIA leak scandal) described the public identification of a CIA agent, an event which brought many people into disrepute. Merriam-Webster didn't cite any one event as contributing to the rise in the word's popularity, so it was likely a combination of events boosting this word's popularity.

Answer: Truthiness

The concept of truthiness relates to the perceived increase in the use of propaganda or reporting techniques that throw distrust at the use of experts or facts. American comedian Stephen Colbert used the word in the pilot episode of his 'The Comedy Report' show and specific reference was made to events like the Iraq War, where George W. Bush was noted as appealing to a specific subset of the American population.

He argued that perception was everything.

Answer: Woot

All these options actually derive from leetspeak, the somewhat obnoxious internet speak that was popular in the earlier days of internet communities. In leetspeak, letters (often vowels) are substituted for numbers or other symbols. So, you'd have w00t, n00b, pr0n and 0wn3d (or pwned).

Although it can be considered an acronym for 'we owned the other team' (as in competitive gaming), Julia Roberts' character in 1990's 'Pretty Woman' also used the term as an excited interjection before it became popular in gaming circles.

Answer: Facebook

Due to the rise of Mark Zuckerberg's social media website, 'Facebook', it became so frequently used as to be generic. A term referring to the use of a brand as a generic class of objects without the company losing the brand's exclusive rights is referred to as a proprietary eponym or genericised trademark: 'Kleenex' is the example most often given.

It's notable that 'google' (in lowercase) was also the runner-up in 2006, and one could probably have used all of these websites as verbs, though 'WhatsApp' wasn't created until 2009.

Answer: Bailout

There was much discussion of bailing out the banks, a policy which at the time was very unpopular with the public. In the U.S. and U.K. - and elsewhere - hundreds of billions of pounds were spent on banks as they were considered 'too big to fail'. Other words in the list indicated a sense of fear and dissatisfaction: 'maverick', 'trepidation', 'rogue' and 'turmoil' also placed in the top ten.

Answer: Admonish

Representative Joe Wilson was a Republican Congressman at the time, though he had served in the Senate between 1985 and 2001. He made the outburst in relation to a claim Barack Obama had made relating to undocumented immigrants who would not be covered by his healthcare plan.

The term 'admonish' derives from the Latin for 'ad' (to) and 'moneo' (warn or advise) and was used in relation to Barack Obama's response to his outburst; the House of Representatives had even submitted a bill for a formal resolution publically rebuking his actions.

Answer: Emaciated

Michael Jackson was found dead at his home in Los Angeles in 2009 from acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication. His death famously overshadowed the death of Farrah Fawcett, who died on the same day, June 25th. The dictionary publisher's editor, Peter Sokolowski, noted that a large number of media articles used the word in reference to Michael Jackson's body, and it was the most searched for word in the summer.

The term 'emaciate' became popularised in the 1620s, as 'to cause to lose flesh'.

Answer: Austerity

In the United Kingdom, the austerity programme resulted in a number of cuts to public services and public spending. It was intended to reduce the deficit - the difference between government revenue and expenditure - and although there was initially broad public support for the policies, the programme became less and less popular as the effect of the cuts became palpable over the 2010s.

The term 'austerity' derives from 'austere', a Middle-English term ultimately deriving from the Greek for 'austeros' (harsh or severe).

Answer: Pragmatic

In a similar vein to 'integrity', the interest in the word 'pragmatic' was in part idealistic. It was not connected with any particular event, although it was connected with events like the Budget Act put into place to reduce the U.S. deficit. Peter Sokolowski described it by saying, "It's a word that resonates with society as a whole; something people want to understand fully.".

Answer: Capitalism and socialism

Merriam-Webster attributed the increase in popularity of these words to the U.S. presidential debates that took place that year. Where capitalism refers to the private ownership of the means of production and their profit, socialism refers to the social and collective ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods. Proposed changes to healthcare were often - rightly or not - tied in with 'socialism'.

Answer: Science

Merriam-Webster stated that the word had been popular throughout the year, not spiking due to any particular event. Discussions had taken place over 'phony' science, specific policies relating to science, and as to how far science could go to solve the burgeoning problems facing the world at the time.

It comes from the Latin, scientia, meaning 'to know', and involves measurable and falsifiable properties as opposed to intuition.

Answer: Culture

As with 'science', 'culture' was not connected with any single event but had been a popular topic throughout that year. There was a tendency in the media to attach the term 'culture' to many words, examples including 'celebrity culture', 'rape culture' or 'company culture'. Peter Sokolowski also noted even more specific uses of the word, like 'test-prep culture' or 'coffee culture', and that although it was a generic word it simply had been used a lot more that year.

Answer: -ism

'-age' and '-ion' refer to an action or process, whereas '-iasis' nods at a diseased condition. Terms including the suffix like capitalism, socialism, communism and fascism were all on the top ten list of that year. The suffix '-ism' originally came from Ancient Greek, and in its early uses turned verbs into nouns.

It has since expanded to describe religions, practices, prejudices or characteristic features.

Answer: Surreal

In relation to the noted events, Merriam-Webster observed that people tend to look up the word 'surreal' in moments of both tragedy and surprise. Other cited events included Prince's death, the Brexit vote and the Pulse shooting in Orlando. In a literal sense, the word can be described as being 'over real' since the 'sur' comes from the French for 'over'.

Answer: Feminism

After widespread allegations against former film producer Harvey Weinstein were publicised late in that year, the hashtag #MeToo resulted in large numbers of women sharing their experiences of sexual abuse on social media, hence the 'me too'. This, and the listed events, all played into popular narratives that aimed to empower women and to recognise their shared struggles. Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2020.

To expand on what White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway had said: she stated at a Conservative Political Action Conference that she 'wasn't a feminist' and dismissed the term as 'anti-male' and 'pro-abortion'.

Answer: Justice

Merriam-Webster noted that, in a similar sense to culture, the word was used in many contexts: racial justice; social justice; economic justice and criminal justice, to name a few. It had also been searched for in relation to the Department for Justice, where the Mueller investigation had been taking place; the word had experienced a 74% increase in popularity on the Merriam-Webster website as compared with the preceding year.

Answer: They

One of the themes of the later 2010s was that discussions on gender theory were, to a much greater extent, taking place in mainstream discourse. Caitlyn Jenner had come out as transgender in 2015, for example, raising the profile of transgenderism and gender dysphoria.

In September, the singer Sam Smith had came out as being non-binary: neither identifying as either male or female. Where we typically use 'he' or 'she', a non-binary person might prefer to be referred to as 'they', although there are other pronouns people might refer to themselves as.

Answer: Quid pro quo

This phrase borrowed from Latin was used critically when Donald Trump had talked to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where he was accused of soliciting investigations into the son of potential rival candidate Joe Biden in exchange for giving Ukraine military aid. This was another controversial event in what had been a controversial presidency, and was specifically cited by Merriam-Webster as the reason for the increase in the term's popularity.

'Carpe diem' means to seize the day, 'mea culpa' is 'my blame', and 'vice versa' is in reverse order.