The site chooses its word of the year by heading straight for data first, scouring look-ups by day, month and year to date and how they correspond to noteworthy events, Solomon said. This year, a lot of high-volume trends unsurprisingly corresponded to politics. But the site also looks at lower-volume trends to see what other words resonated. Among them:
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INTERSEX: It trended on Dictionary.com in January thanks to model Hanne Gaby Odiele speaking up about being intersex to break taboos. As a noun it means “an individual having reproductive organs or external sexual characteristics of both male and female.†Dictionary.com traces its origins back to 1915, as the back formation of “intersexual.â€
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SHRINKAGE: While the word has been around since 1790, a specific definition tied to a famous 1994 episode of “Seinfeld†led to a word look-up revival in February. That’s when a house in The Hamptons where the episode was filmed went on the market. For the record: The Jason Alexander character George Costanza emerges with “shrinkage†from a pool and said “shrinkage†is noted by Jerry’s girlfriend.
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TARNATION: It had a good ride on Dictionary.com in the first few months of the year due to a round of social media fun with the “What in tarnation†meme that had animals and various objects wearing cowboy hats.
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HOROLOGIST: As in master clockmaker, like the one featured in the podcast “S-Town,†the highly anticipated “This American Life†follow-up to the popular “Serial†podcast. All seven episodes of murder intrigue were released at once in March. Horologist, used in the radio story, trended around that time.
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TOTALITY: There were look-up spikes in August. Thank you, solar eclipse and your narrow band of totality, meaning the strip of land where the sun was completely obscured by the moon.
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