NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� In an age of deepfakes and post-truth, as rose and Elon Musk turned Twitter into X, the is 鈥渁uthentic.鈥�
Authentic cuisine. Authentic voice. Authentic self. Authenticity as artifice. Lookups for the word are routinely heavy on the dictionary company's site but were boosted to new heights throughout the year, editor at large Peter Sokolowski told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.
鈥淲e see in 2023 a kind of crisis of authenticity,鈥� he said ahead of Monday's announcement of this year's word. 鈥淲hat we realize is that when we question authenticity, we value it even more.鈥�
Sokolowski and his team don't delve into the reasons people head for dictionaries and websites in search of specific words. Rather, they chase the data on lookup spikes and world events that correlate. This time around, there was no particularly huge boost at any given time but a constancy to the increased interest in 鈥渁uthentic.鈥�
This was the year of artificial intelligence, for sure, but also a moment when suffered a leadership crisis. and chased after authenticity in their words and deeds. Musk himself, at February's World Government Summit in Dubai, urged the heads of companies, politicians, ministers and other leaders to 鈥渟peak authentically鈥� on social media by running their own accounts.
鈥淐an 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,鈥� Sokolowski said. 鈥淲e sometimes don't believe our own eyes or our own ears. We are now recognizing that authenticity is a performance itself."
Merriam-Webster's .
There's 鈥渘ot false or imitation: real, actual,鈥� as in an authentic cockney accent. There's 鈥渢rue to one's own personality, spirit or character.鈥� There's 鈥渨orthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact.鈥� There's 鈥渕ade or done the same way as an original.鈥� And, perhaps the most telling, there's 鈥渃onforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features.鈥�
鈥淎uthentic鈥� follows And 2023 marks Merriam-Webster鈥檚 20th anniversary choosing a top word.
The company鈥檚 data crunchers filter out evergreen words like 鈥渓ove鈥� and 鈥渁ffect鈥� vs. 鈥渆ffect鈥� that are always high in lookups among the 500,000 words it defines online. This year, the wordsmiths also filtered out numerous five-letter words because and Quordle players clearly use the company鈥檚 site in search of them as they play the daily games, Sokolowski said.
Sokolowski, a lexicologist, and his colleagues have a bevy of runners-up for word of the year that also attracted unusual traffic. They include 鈥淴鈥� (lookups spiked in July after of Twitter), 鈥淓GOT鈥� (there was a boost in February when with a Grammy) and 鈥淓lemental,鈥� the title of a that had lookups jumping in June.
Rounding out the company's top words of 2023, in no particular order:
RIZZ: It's slang for 鈥渞omantic appeal or charm" and seemingly short for charisma. Merriam-Webster added the word to its online dictionary in September and it's been among the top lookups since, Sokolowski said.
KIBBUTZ: There was a massive spike in lookups for 鈥渁 communal farm or settlement in Israel鈥� after on Oct. 7. The first kibbutz was founded circa 1909 in what is today Israel.
IMPLODE: The June 18 on a commercial expedition to explore the Titanic wreckage sent lookups soaring for this word, meaning 鈥渢o burst inward.鈥� 鈥淚t was a story that completely occupied the world,鈥� Sokolowski said.
DEADNAME: Interest was high in what Merriam-Webster defines as 鈥渢he name that a transgender person was given at birth and no longer uses upon transitioning.鈥� Lookups followed an aimed at around the country.
DOPPEL鈥婫ANGER: Sokolowski calls this 鈥渁 word lover's word.鈥� Merriam-Webster defines it as a 鈥渄ouble,鈥� an 鈥渁lter ego鈥� or a 鈥済hostly counterpart.鈥� It derives from German folklore. Interest in the word surrounded , 鈥淒oppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World,鈥� released this year. She uses her own experience of often being confused with feminist author and conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf as a springboard into a broader narrative on the crazy times we're all living in.
CORONATION: had one on May 6, sending lookups for the word soaring 15,681% over the year before, Sokolowski said. Merriam-Webster defines it as 鈥渢he act or occasion of crowning.鈥�
DEEPFAKE: The dictionary company's definition is 鈥渁n that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said.鈥� Interest spiked after Musk鈥檚 lawyers in a Tesla lawsuit said he is often the subject of deepfake videos and again after the likeness of Ryan Reynolds appeared in a fake, AI-generated Tesla ad.
DYSTOPIAN: brought on interest in the word. So did books, movies and TV fare intended to entertain. 鈥淚t's unusual to me to see a word that is used in both contexts,鈥� Sokolowski said.
COVENANT: Lookups for the word meaning 鈥渁 usually formal, solemn, and binding agreement鈥� swelled on March 27, after a deadly mass shooting at . The shooter was a former student killed by police after killing three students and three adults.
Interest also spiked with this year's release of and Abraham Verghese's long-awaited new novel, 鈥淭he Covenant of Water,鈥� which .
More recently, soon after ascended to House speaker, a 2022 interview with the Louisiana congressman recirculated. He discussed how his teen son was then his 鈥渁ccountability partner鈥� on Covenant Eyes, software that tracks browser history and sends reports to each partner when porn or other potentially objectionable sites are viewed.
INDICT: Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C., in addition to that threatens his real estate empire.
Leanne Italie, The Associated Press
