'Feminism' is Merriam-Webster's word of the year

The word soared this year in the dictionary's online searches with the emergence of #MeToo movement.

Several key moments of 2017 justify the selection of 'feminism' as Merriam-Webster's word of the year.

"2017 saw both a sustained rise in 'feminism' lookups and a number of event-driven spikes," the dictionary's official Twitter account shared. "'Feminism' is our #WordOfTheYear."

 

 

Lookups for the definition of feminism increased by 70 percent over last year, according to the dictionary.

Peter Sokolowski, Editor at Large for Merriam-Webster, said in a statement, "'Feminism' spiked following news coverage of the Women's March on Washington, DC in January (and other related marches held around the country and internationally), and follow-up discussions regarding whether the march was feminist, and what kind of feminism was represented by organizers and attendees."

"The word spiked again when Kellyanne Conway said during an interview that she didn't 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."

The word soared again in the dictionary's online searches with the emergence of #MeToo movement.

"More recently, lookups of feminism have been increasing in conjunction with the many accounts of sexual assault and harassment in the news. As the country witnessed a number of women coming forward to share their stories with journalists, many more women joined in on social media using the #MeToo hashtag to say that they too have been affected by such behavior," he said.

Other highly searched words on Merriam-Webster.com include 'recuse,' 'empathy,' 'dotard,' 'syzygy' and 'gyro.