Lists of Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year

Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year are words of the year lists published annually by the American dictionary-publishing company Merriam-Webster, Inc. The lists feature ten words from the English language. These word lists started in 2003 and have been published at the end of each year.

The Words of the Year usually reflect events that happened during the years the lists were published. For example, the Word of the Year for 2005, 'integrity', showed that the general public had an immense interest in defining this word amid ethics scandals in the United States government, corporations, and sports.[1] The Word of the Year for 2004, 'blog', was looked up on the Online Dictionary the most as blogs began to influence mainstream media.[2] In 2006, Merriam-Webster received a lot of publicity as 'truthiness', a word coined by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report, topped the list.[3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference solomon05 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference BBCblog was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference NYT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).