‘Feminism’ is Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year For 2017

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‘Feminism’ is Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2017 for being the top lookup throughout the year, amid a spike in reports of sexual assault and harassment in the news, the dictionary announced on Tuesday, 12 December.

Feminism is defined as “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” and “organised activity on behalf of women's rights and interests,” according to merriam-webster.com.

“The general rise in lookups tells us that many people are interested in this word; specific spikes give us insight into some of the reasons why,” said lexicographer Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor-at-large.

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year is a quantitative measure of interest in a particular word. Our online dictionary gives us insight into the collective curiosity of the public, with millions of words looked up every month.

Peter Sokolowsk

Nine more notable words that sent people to the dictionary in 2017 were: complicit, recuse, empathy, dotard, syzygy, gyro, federalism, hurricane and gaffe.

Surreal was Merriam-Webster's word of the year last year.

Feminism spiked following news coverage of the Women’s March on Washington, DC in January and other related marches held around the US and internationally.

The word spiked again when American political pundit Kellyanne Conway said during an interview that she did not consider herself a feminist.

In this case, the definition of feminism was itself the subject of the news story - an invitation for many people to look up the word.

“Interest in the dictionary definition of feminism was also driven by entertainment this year: we saw increased lookups after the release of both Hulu's series ‘The Handmaid's Tale’ and the film ‘Wonder Woman’,” said Sokolowski.

(The article has been edited for length.)