Washington DC, United States

The 2024 United States presidential elections dominated the country and also the search results of Merriam-Webster which finally culminated in "polarisation" becoming the word of the year. 

Advertisment

“Polarisation means division, but it’s a very specific kind of division,” said Peter Sokolowski, who is editor of Merriam-Webster in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press. 

“Polarisation means that we are tending toward the extremes rather than toward the centre," Sokolowski added.

The entry for “polarisation” in the Merriam-Webster reflected on scientific and metaphorical definitions. The word is commonly used to mean “causing strong disagreement between opposing factions or groupings.” 

Advertisment

Merriam-Webster, which receives more than 100 million page views every month on its website, chose the word of the year based on the data and tracked the increase of word in search and usage.

Their 2023 word of the year was “authentic.” 

Also Read: 'Brain rot' emerges as Oxford word of the year. Are you suffering from it?

Advertisment

“It’s always been important to me that the dictionary serves as a kind of neutral and objective arbiter of meaning for everybody,” said Sokolowski.

 “It’s a kind of backstop for meaning in an era of fake news, alternative facts, whatever you want to say about the value of a word’s meaning in the culture," he added. 

The word “polarisation” originated in the early 1800s, Sokolowski said. He said that it is a “pretty young word". “Polarised is a term that brings intensity to another word,” he said.

“The basic job of the dictionary is to tell the truth about words. We’ve had dictionaries of English for 420 years and it’s only been in the last 20 years or so that we’ve actually known which words people look up," explained the Merriam-Webster editor.

“Search volume on Merriam-Webster.com throughout the year reflected the desire of Americans to better understand the complex state of affairs in our country and around the world,” the dictionary added. 

Other words which topped search results on Merriam-Webster

Along with "polarisation", other popular words related to politics also made it to the word of the year list of the dictionary. This included words like “democracy”, "pander", "weird", "cognitive", and "demure". 

Watch: ‘Brat’ is Collins' Word of the Year

The word “democracy” received bipartisan attention across blue and red states and people searching for it “fully understand what it means—and to challenge, celebrate, and protect it,” as per Merriam-Webster. 

“The word democracy never appears in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, but it has long been a focus of American and global attention, rarely more so than now,” the dictionary added in its explanation.

(With inputs from agencies)