Nominations for the 2018 word of the year have been posted. The final vote will be held at 5 p.m. EST, Friday, January 4th, at the Sheraton Times Square Hotel in New York City, Empire Ballroom.
You can still make nominations in person when the final vote will be taken. Nominations should be some or all of the following: widely used, new or newly popular, significant to the happenings of 2018, indicative of public discourse and national preoccupations in 2018. Single words, phrases, compounds, catch phrases, hashtags, emoji, and other types of brief written or spoken communication are accepted as nominations.
American Dialect Society 2018 Words of the Year
NOMINATIONS to be voted on by the American Dialect Society, Jan. 4, 2019, New York, NY
POLITICAL WORD OF THE YEAR
- blue wave: major Democratic electoral gain
- caravan: procession of Central American asylum seekers to US/Mexico border
- lodestar: guiding principle (used in op/ed by anonymous White House staffer)
- nationalist: displaying a staunch belief in one’s own nation (used by Trump and supporters)
- (the) wall: proposed barrier along the US/Mexico border to prevent illegal crossings
DIGITAL WORD OF THE YEAR
- blackfishing: pretending to be black on social media by using makeup and hair products
- deepfake: realistic digitally composed video used to misrepresent someone
- demonetize: remove ads from a YouTube channel to deprive the creator of revenue
- finsta: fake Instagram account
- techlash: backlash against tech innovators
SLANG/INFORMAL WORD OF THE YEAR
- big dick energy: calm, unassuming attitude
- canceled: firmly rejected or dismissed
- mood, big mood: strong emotion of agreement
- weird flex but OK: rejoinder to improper boast
- yeet: indication of surprise or excitement
MOST USEFUL
- himpathy: flow of sympathy away from female victims toward their male victimizers
- orbiting: ending communication with someone while still monitoring them on social media
- preferred pronoun: pronoun that a person opts to use for himself/herself/themself/etc.
- situationship: undefined personal relationship
- Voldemorting: avoiding mention of unpleasant person or topic by using a replacement term
MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED
- cli-fi: science fiction relating to climate change
- climate grief: negative feelings caused by climate-change-related weather events
- hothouse Earth: runaway global warming
- single-use: to be used once and destroyed
MOST CREATIVE
- girther: person skeptical of the president’s reported weight and height
- procrasti-: related to procrastination
- today years old: indication that someone has just recently learned something
- treasonweasel: epithet for a traitorous person
- white caller crime: white people calling police on black people for doing mundane things
EUPHEMISM OF THE YEAR
- executive time: presidential down-time
- Individual 1: pseudonym for Trump in documents from the Mueller investigation
- racially charged: circumlocution for “racist”
- tender-age camp/shelter/facility: government detention center for asylum-seekers’ children
WTF WORD OF THE YEAR
- emotional support peacock: therapy animal that airline passenger tried to bring on board
- incel: involuntary celibate (online subculture)
- shithole countries: Trump’s epithet for places he does not want to accept immigrants from
- soy boy: term for a man perceived as not conforming to male gender stereotypes
HASHTAG OF THE YEAR
- #neveragain: call for gun-control measures after the Parkland shooting
- #nottheonion: reporting something true that seems like satire from The Onion
- #thankunext: expressing gratitude and readiness to move on (from Ariana Grande)
- #timesup: movement protesting sexual assault
EMOJI OF THE YEAR
- 🦞: lobster (adopted by trans community)
- 💅: nail polish (indicating air of nonchalance)
- 🤦: facepalm (indicating exasperation, disbelief)
- 🤔: thinking face (indicating bemused pondering)
WORD OF THE YEAR
Nominations to be made at final meeting.