Word of the Year: Things You Didn’t Know You Wanted to Know

Word of the Year (WOTY) began in 1990, when the American Dialect Society (ADS) — a group of linguists and language scholars — held its first vote. Allan Metcalf, a professor of English at MacMurray College in Illinois and the executive secretary of the ADS, was inspired by Time magazine’s Person of the Year. He thought the ADS would be the perfect group to choose a Word of the Year. The group agreed, and history was made!

I had no idea there was even one Word of the Year — let alone that multiple organizations choose their own WOTYs every single year.

And if you’ve been following my blog for any amount of time, you can probably guess that I went down a rabbit hole. A very deep rabbit hole… which you now have the pleasure of reading all about.

(This is the part where you say thank you. And whether you did or not, you’re very welcome.)

Even if words aren’t your thing, keep reading. I promise to make this interesting — okay, I promise to try to make this interesting.

The first word chosen was “bushlips”… and that probably does not mean what you’re thinking! Get your minds out of the gutter — this is a family-friendly blog.
(Yeah… it’s actually not, but that sounded good, right?)

“Bushlips” means broken promises or empty political rhetoric. It comes from President George H. W. Bush’s famous line in his 1988 acceptance speech: “Read my lips: no new taxes.”

I’m not going to list all the Words of the Year between 1990 and now, but here are a few that are interesting, strange, or just plain entertaining:

• NOT! (1992)
• Y2K (1999)
• plutoed (2006 — hmmm, I wonder why?)
• dumpster fire (2016)
• Covid (2020 — shocking, I know!)

In 2004, Oxford University Press (OUP) joined the fun. Their first official Word of the Year was a term that is considered derogatory and offensive. Because it’s a British slang word and I’m not British, it’s hard for me to gauge exactly how offensive it is — but I do know it carries negative connotations. So I’m choosing not to include it here.

(If you are curious, you are welcome to Google “OUP Word of the Year 2004.”)

The 2005 Oxford University Press Word of the Year was podcast, which is especially interesting since the first podcast was recorded in 2003. I’m not sure I even knew what a podcast was back in 2005!

A few more of Oxford’s Words of the Year:

• bovvered (2006)
• omnishambles (2012 — I love this one. It basically means “a disaster in every possible way.” It’s the disaster of all disasters. And if the situation absolutely stinks, at least you’ve got a fun, dramatic word to describe it, right?)
• no word was chosen (2020)
• goblin mode (2022)

Merriam-Webster started choosing a Word of the Year in 2004. Their first choice was democracy. After experimenting with different selection methods, in 2008 Merriam-Webster decided to pick the Word of the Year from the 10 most frequently looked-up words for that year.

Some standout years:

• truthiness (2006 — the American Dialect Society named it their 2005 Word of the Year)
• w00t (2007 — purposely spelled with two zeros)
• ism (2015)
• pandemic (2020 — I can’t imagine why this was a most looked-up word?!)
• gaslighting (2022)
• polarization (2024)

You all still with me? (Note that I said “You all,” instead of “Y’all.” I’m from New England, which is in the Northeast part of the US.) Every now and then, I fall into a research deep dive like this one — and apparently drag you with me. Thanks for sticking around.

Keep reading, we’re almost done. And trust me — if you leave now, you’ll miss the stellar ending.

The purpose of the Word of the Year is to act as a little time capsule of the year it represents. And while it makes perfect sense how words like pandemic, covid, or vaccine define their moments… I’m still not entirely sure what on earth w00t says about 2007.

Of course, I could Google it, but I’m afraid I’ll tumble straight into another related rabbit hole — and I’m not sure I’ll have any readers left by the end.
(And again, you’re welcome!)

I do wonder, though: if future generations (or aliens — who knows?) ever look back at Words of the Year, will they know what to make of them? Fifty years from now, will someone see that 2022’s WOTY was “goblin mode” and instantly understand the vibe?

And what happens if the meaning of a word changes over time? What does that say about the year it represented? For example, the word nice originally meant ignorant or foolish. Awful meant inspiring wonder. And bully was once a term of endearment.

Ugh, so many words, so many questions, so many rabbit holes. So, so MANY rabbit holes.

And I haven’t even mentioned that Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year for 2025 is “67.” Really, 67?? I don’t even know what that means — and I’m not sure anyone does. I do know 67 involves specific hand motions… so next year, will we have Hand Motions of the Year, too?

I can think of one specific hand motion people would definitely nominate! Haha!

This is getting to be too much, so I’m going to stop here — otherwise this may turn into a 21-page research paper. And if you doubt that I could write 21 pages about Word of the Year?
Hold my beer. I’ve got mad writing skills.

Portfolio Skills Highlight:
As I build a writing career, I’m using posts like this to show that I can take researched information and turn it into something readable and relatable, while also demonstrating my skills in research, content synthesis, and narrative-driven nonfiction — strengths I try to bring to every piece I write.

If you enjoyed tumbling down this word-nerd rabbit hole with me, tap that ⭐, share the post, or subscribe so you don’t miss the next deep dive I absolutely did not plan to take — but will probably take anyway.