Merriam-Webster OnLine, the leading source for English language reference on the Web, is asking its visitors to vote for the one word they feel best sums up the past eleven months and most deserves the distinction of becoming Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2007. Last year the overwhelming majority of voters chose "truthiness" — a word introduced by Stephen Colbert on the debut of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report — to take top honors. This year, visitors may choose from a list culled from 2007’s most frequently looked-up words on Merriam-Webster OnLine as well as submissions from one of the site’s most popular features, Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary. All votes will be tallied by the company’s staff and the winner will be announced online at https://www.merriam-webster.com/ in December.
Many of the words that most intrigued the online community in 2007 came straight from media headlines. The year got off to a fighting start for word watchers when a posthumously published interview revealed that former President Gerald R. Ford had used the adjective "pugnacious" to describe Vice President Dick Cheney. The tragic Virginia Tech school shooting prompted many look-ups for the word "charlatan," and the onslaught of internal scrutiny in Washington inspired Merriam-Webster’s users to conduct investigations of their own on words like "subpoena" and "hypocrite." On a lighter note, the word "sardoodledom" became a favorite after it brought on a fit of laughter from the 11-year-old who was asked to spell it on the televised Scripps National Spelling Bee, and the word "sputum" received some unexpected attention when, without warning, it was slipped into copy for CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric.
Traffic to Merriam-Webster OnLine now exceeds 100 million individual page views per month. On average, the company responds to approximately ten lookup requests in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary or Thesaurus per second. During peak hours, this may increase to more than 100 requests per second.
Candidates for the 2007 Word of the Year also include a few entries from Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary, a real-time chronicle of new words and definitions based entirely on user submissions. Newcomers making the list this year include "babymoon," defined as "a short vacation for a couple before the birth of their child," and "linkability," meaning "the attractiveness of a Web site’s overall quality of content as a measure of potential Internet links made." Celebrating its second anniversary this month, the Open Dictionary now contains more than 10,000 neologisms of all kinds, from slang to technical, and from playful to serious.
For complete lists of past Merriam-Webster’s Words of the Year, including information on how to make your own nomination for 2007, please visit https://www.merriam-webster.com/. For additional information on the selection process, or to arrange an interview on this topic, please contact Arthur J. Bicknell, Senior Publicist, at the above address.
Merriam-Webster, Incorporated
Merriam-Webster Inc. acquired the rights to revise and publish Noah Webster’s dictionaries in 1843. Since then, Merriam-Webster has maintained an ongoing commitment to innovation, scholarship, and love of language. Today, the company continues as the leader in both print and electronic language reference publishing with reference products, learning tools, and word games. For more information about the company, and about Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, visit Merriam-Webster OnLine at https://www.merriam-webster.com/.
This article was last modified on January 8, 2023
This article was first published on November 28, 2007
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