Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
In fact, the distinguished, 134-year-old, American Dialect Society (ADS) selects the Word of the Year (WOTY) in eight (no-less-interesting) additional categories. Words of the year (WOTTIES) selected in categories, such as the Most creative WOTY, the Acronym/Initialism of the year, the Euphemism of the year, the Most useful/Most likely to succeed WOTY, or the Digital WOTY.
Below, a copy of the list of each of the ADS Word of the Year (WOTY) categories, released to the press. The categories appear with indexed category winners (marked with an asterisk), together with the category candidates, including candidates in the Word of the year 2023 category, the winner of ‘em all.
The terms are listed with their definitions, or expansions in cases of abbreviation. The numbers appearing at the end of lines indicate the number of votes, or runoff votes, when competition was tight.
WARNING: Some of the terms are not for the faint of heart.
* enshittification: worsening of a digital platform through reduction in quality of service 68/92/158
babygirl: older male fictional character or celebrity seen as emotionally damaged, helpless, or vulnerable 10
ceasefire: rallying cry for those seeking a stoppage of hostilities in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 29
context: word invoked by presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn to questions at a House hearing about prohibiting speech on campus 45/63
(derogatory): parenthetical comment humorously appended after a word that might not be expected to be derogatory 43/73/121
girlie: lighthearted and affectionate term of address for young women (also used in a broader more gender-inclusive way) 20
Kenaissance: renaissance in the wake of the Barbie movie’s depiction of Ken (also Kenergy, Kenough) 14
let (someone) cook: allow a person to do something that they are good at without interference 14
stochastic parrot: large language model that can generate plausible synthetic text without having any understanding 37/52
MOST USEFUL/MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED
* (derogatory): parenthetical comment humorously appended after a word that might not be expected to be derogatory 116
cunty: having an audaciously exceptional appearance or displaying fierce femininity (from LGBTQ ballroom culture) 26
enshittification: worsening of a digital platform through reduction in quality of service 37
era: a personal period defined by a noteworthy style or behavior (esp. in in my X era) 30
girl/boy X: way of doing something associated with a gender, as in girl dinner, girl math, boy math 55
mother: (adj.) admirable (as a term of endearment); (v.) to perform something admirably (from LGBTQ ballroom culture) 16
* 🍉 (watermelon emoji): symbol of Palestinian solidarity used on social media 103/143
context: word invoked by presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn to questions at a House hearing about prohibiting speech on campus 61
hot labor summer/hot union summer: summer of 2023, when a number of unions went on strike 106/133
I/P: shorthand for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict 1
DIGITAL WORD OF THE YEAR
* enshittification: worsening of a digital platform through reduction in quality of service 111
chat: collective term of address for those participating in a streamer’s chat 59
gamers: second-person plural term of address, as on a gaming livestream 11
ice cream so good: response by TikTok streamer Pinkydoll to receiving an ice cream emoji 11
millennial pause: pause by a millennial at the beginning of a recorded video, as opposed to the Gen Z shake (shaky video at the start of recording) 45
skibidi: nonsense word popularized by the YouTube animated series Skibidi Toilet 46
INFORMAL WORD OF THE YEAR
* let (someone) cook: allow a person to do something that they are good at without interference 90/142
babygirl: older male fictional character or celebrity seen as emotionally damaged, helpless, or vulnerable 39
(derogatory): parenthetical comment humorously appended after a word that might not be expected to be derogatory 75 /127
gyat, gyatt: exclamation expressing surprise, excitement, or admiration (esp. on seeing someone with a large butt) 12
rizz: charm or attractiveness, now used as a combining form or blend component (rizzler, pre-rizz-toric) 60
ACRONYM/INITIALISM OF THE YEAR (ad-hoc category)
* FAFO (fuck around and find out): warning that foolish actions will result in unwanted consequences 177
AITA (am I the asshole?): question asked to an online audience (as on Reddit) to determine if the person is at fault in a situation 47
IYKYK (if you know, you know): indication that something is a reference understood by a select group 14
LFG (let’s fucking go): exhortation to action 26
MOOP (matter out of place): waste material left behind at an event (esp. Burning Man) 12
AI-RELATED WORD THE YEAR (ad-hoc category)
* stochastic parrot: large language model that can generate plausible synthetic text without having any understanding 106/147
ChatGPT: name for OpenAI’s chatbot, now becoming generic for generative AI systems 111/130
hallucination: AI-generated response containing false information presented as factual 10
LLM (large language model): machine-learning model trained on a vast text corpus 6
prompt engineer: expert in developing text prompts for generative AI models 40
MOST CREATIVE WORD OF THE YEAR
* Kenaissance: renaissance in the wake of the Barbie movie’s depiction of Ken (also Kenergy, Kenough) 100/161
assholocene: the current era of human history, defined by the ubiquity of assholes 42
delulu: delusion, as in delulu is the solulu (delusion is the solution) 72/109
tush push: quarterback sneak for short yardage perfected by the Philadelphia Eagles (also called the brotherly shove) 64
EUPHEMISM OF THE YEAR
* structurally restrictive housing: solitary confinement (rebranded by the New York City Department of Correction) 101
artificial intelligence: computerized simulation of human intelligence that is not actually intelligent 60
effective altruism: movement ostensibly to benefit humanity, used as an excuse for spending other people’s money 57
free bird: alternative to “empty-nester” promoted by Gwyneth Paltrow 17
stenographer: journalist seen as uncritically reporting statements made by officials and others in power 22
American Dialect Society (ADS)
https://americandialect.org/
Zimmer, B. and L. Sutton. (Jan. 5, 2024). American Dialect Society selects “enshittification” as 2023 Word of the Year. Press Release American Dialect Society.
https://americandialect.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2023-Word-of-the-Year-PRESS-RELEASE.pdf
