Does “word of the year” mean anything anymore? Last month, Oxford Dictionaries picked an emoji as their word of the year. And now, Merriam-Webster has made their pick — and it’s a suffix.
Their 2015 word of the year is: “ism.” As in socialism, terrorism, and so on.
They chose it based on a big increase in searches from the previous year.
They say that seven “ism” words had major jumps this year: Socialism, fascism, racism, feminism, communism, capitalism and terrorism.
Their runner-ups were: marriage, hypocrite, respect, inspiration and minion.