(PCM) The fine dictionary folks over at Merriam-Webster have declared that “surreal” is their word of the year for 2016. The definition of “surreal” is “marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream” and it was looked up by users countless times throughout the year.
The word “surreal” joins up with the Oxford English Dictionary’s “post-truth” and Dictionary.com’s “xenophobia” as top words searched for this year. Merriam-Webster editor-at-large Peter Sokolowski says “Our word of the year is one that people came back to over and over again in response to several events, and it gives us a look at 2016, according to what sent us to the dictionary.
The dictionary makers claim the word had a very high number of look-up’s especially after the recent Presidential election and it has had a significant year to year jump in popularity.
Other words that topped out Merriam-Webster’s 2016 list according to Yahoo.com included:
Icon – The spike in lookups came after Prince’s death on April 21, when searchers were also looking up “surreal.”
Bigly – Looked up mostly during the U.S. presidential election after then Republican candidate Donald Trump, using “big league” as an adverb, made it sound like the word “bigly.”
Deplorable – Democratic president candidate Hillary Clinton, during the election, famously called Trump supporters a “basket full of deplorables.”
Pop Culture News