What's Merriam-Webster's word for 2023? Hint: We should value it more
Merriam-Webster's word for 2023: This year there was no particular huge boost at any given time for the search of the word but a constancy.
The Merriam-Webster word of the year for 2023 is “authentic", editor Peter Sokolowski told The Associated Press.
“We see in 2023 a kind of crisis of authenticity,” he said ahead of Monday's announcement of this year's word. “What we realize is that when we question authenticity, we value it even more," he said. This year there was no particular huge boost at any given time for the search of the word but a constancy to the increased interest in “authentic", he said.
“Can we trust whether a student wrote this paper? Can we trust whether a politician made this statement? We don't always trust what we see anymore. We sometimes don't believe our own eyes or our own ears. We are now recognizing that authenticity is a performance itself," he said.
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Merriam-Webster's entry for “authentic” shows meaning as: “not false or imitation: real, actual, true to one's own personality, spirit or character, worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact, made or done the same way as an original, conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features.”
“Authentic” follows 2022’s choice of “gaslighting.”
What are the other top words of 2023:
Rizz: Slang for “romantic appeal or charm". Merriam-Webster added the word to its online dictionary in September.
Kibbutz: There was a massive spike in lookups for “a communal farm or settlement in Israel” after Hamas attacked Israel
Impode: The June 18 implosion of the Titan submersible on a commercial expedition led to more searches for the word.
Deadname: The word is defined as “the name that a transgender person was given at birth and no longer uses upon transitioning.”
Coronation: King Charles III's May 6 ceremony rose lookups for the word soaring to 15,681% over the year before.
Deepfake: The definition is “an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said.”
Indict: Former US president Donald Trump's indictment on felony charges in four criminal cases increased interest in the word.