Dictionary.com announced its word of the year as 'woman': Here's why

The website Dictionary.com has announced ‘woman’ as its Word of the Year for 2022 since according to them it “continues to be a source of intense personal importance and societal debate”. In a statement, the website also said that the searches for the word “spiked significantly” several times during separate high-profile events.

“Our selection of woman…reflects how the intersection of gender, identity, and language dominates the current cultural conversation and shapes much of our work as a dictionary,” said the statement. Furthermore, the site also witnessed a noticeable increase in people looking for the definition of ‘woman.’

Dictionary.com, which defines‘woman’ as “an adult female person”, said that the searches for the word at one point increased by more than 1,400 per cent which is a significant leap for such a common word. This resulted in double the typical annual search volume for the word overall.

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The biggest spike was noted at the end of March after Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing who went on to become the first Black woman in the United States supreme court. This was attributed to one of the questions asked by a Republican senator, Marsha Blackburn, “Can you provide a definition for the word woman?”, to which Jackson had responded by saying, “No, I can’t”.

Furthermore, significant increases in searches were also noted when the US supreme court’s draft opinion to overturn Roe v Wade leaked in May. The trend continued till July when the court formally ruled on overturning Roe and thereby revoking the constitutional right to abortion in the country.

“Unsurprisingly, it resulted in both polarization and galvanization. That dynamic played out in November’s midterm elections, which upended trends and expectations,” said the website. It added, “The outcome has been attributed in part to an electorate, and particularly women, voting in reaction to the Dobbs ruling.”

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The statement also listed other significant events when the searches for the word spiked, this included, the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September which prompted, “discussion and debate about the life and the legacy of the woman who became one of the world’s longest reigning monarchs.”

Additionally, key moments also included freedom protests led by women in Iran following the 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini's death who was allegedly in the custody of the government’s morality police. The statement also attributed the tennis player Serena William’s retirement announcement; ongoing debates about transgender athletes; WNBA star Brittney Griner’s arrest and subsequent release as some of the key events.

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Dictionary.com also shortlisted words like inflation, quiet quitting, democracy, Wordle and the Ukraine flag emoji for this year’s word of the year. In 2021, the website made ‘allyship’ its word of the year which was preceded by ‘pandemic’ in 2020 and ‘existential’ in 2019.

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