韦氏词典 merriam-webster2023年...
发布时间 ：2023-12-07 00:11:21
韦氏词典 merriam-webster
2023年度词汇
Word of the Year 2023
'Authentic,' plus 'rizz,' 'deepfake,' 'coronation,' and other words that defined the year
27 Nov 2023
后8个
logo for x formerly twitter
X
Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter as X sent many people to the dictionary to learn more about this unusually flexible letter. It doesn’t just represent a letter and its sound, but also has various meanings and functions: for example, it stands for “an unknown quantity,” it’s a symbol for the act of multiplication, and it is used as a substitute for “by” in measurements, as in “The room was 10’x15’.”
Other letters carry meaning by themselves, (think of F for “failure” or to a T meaning “perfection”), but X has a mystique all its own. Linguist Marcel Danesi was quoted as commenting that X “reverberates with all kinds of meanings that are intuitive, unconscious, and archetypal.”
Lookups for X spiked 885% on July 23, the date of the rebranding announcement, although the value of the platform has declined significantly since then.
rendering of a deep sea submersible
Implode
When a submersible attempting to visit the wreck of the Titanic disappeared in June, the search made international headlines. Titan, the world eventually learned, had imploded.
While explode is a common word, implode is encountered less frequently; people turned to the dictionary to understand it. Something that implodes bursts inward or undergoes violent compression—in this case, from the immense water pressure two miles below the ocean’s surface. The noun implosion also saw a dramatic increase in lookups.
Submersible itself was also a top lookup. A submersible is a small underwater craft used for deep-sea research.
two women who look alike meet each other on the street
Doppelgänger
Doppelgänger saw multiple lookup spikes from independent events. Media coverage of two crimes—one in Germany and one in New York, each involving the murder or attempted murder of someone’s lookalike—focused on the word. So did a story about two minor league baseball players who, despite sharing professions, names, and similar physical features (height, coloring, glasses), were shown via a DNA test to be unrelated. And September saw the release of Naomi Klein’s book, Doppelgänger: A Trip Into the Mirror World.
Doppelgänger can refer to a living person that closely resembles another living person—that is, a double; or it can refer to the opposite side of one’s personality. In German folklore a Doppelgänger is a ghostly counterpart of a living person. The word is formed from two words that together mean “double goer.”
business man in a gray suit passes you a sealed scroll
Covenant
Several very different stories contributed to an increase in lookups for covenant, defined as “a formal, solemn, and binding agreement” or “a written agreement or promise.”
A tragic shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27th coincided with the first spike in lookups for covenant. The word remained higher during the April release of Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, a film depicting the rescue of an Afghan interpreter who had saved the life of a U.S. soldier in combat. In May, a much-anticipated new novel by Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water, became an instant bestseller featured in Oprah’s Book Club. Finally, reports in early November revealed that the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, uses an app called Covenant Eyes to monitor the websites he visits, by sharing them automatically with an accountability partner, in this case Johnson’s teenage son.
Covenant has a religious resonance because of its use in the Bible. It appears over 200 times in the King James Version of the Bible, mostly in the Old Testament, referring to promises of different kinds, sometimes between people, and sometimes between individuals and God. In the Book of Exodus, covenant refers to the Ten Commandments.
a gavel resting on a block
Indict
Indict was often in the news this year. Former President Donald Trump was indicted in four separate cases now moving through the legal system, and indict spiked by 9440% on March 30, when a New York City grand jury charged the former president in the hush-money case.
Indict is defined as “to charge with a crime by the finding or presentment of a jury (such as a grand jury) in due form of law.” Like most words in our legal vocabulary, indict comes from French (others include judge, jury, arraign, appeal, and acquit).
The silent c in indict is the result of scholars in the Renaissance “correcting” the spelling of the French borrowing by adding the c from its Latin ancestor. Before their tampering, the word was spelled indite.
a splash of water meets a lick of flame
Elemental
In June, the title of the new Pixar film Elemental made lookups spike. Appropriately enough, this title employs the original and oldest meaning of element: “any of the four substances air, water, fire, and earth formerly believed to compose the physical universe.”
With characters that embody fire, water, earth, and air as anthropomorphized qualities, the film’s plot becomes an allegory about identity and prejudice.
aerial view of an israeli kibbutz
Kibbutz
When Hamas launched attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7th, civilians living in kibbutzim were among the targets. A term unfamiliar to many outside Israel, kibbutz refers to a communal farm or settlement in Israel.
Other terms relating to Hamas’s attack and Israel’s military response that saw an increase in lookups were blood libel and intifada.
stack of official documents certificate of vital records
Deadname
Deadname saw a large increase in lookups in March with “Parental Rights” bills being considered in several states. Such bills require schools to use what many transgender supporters call a “deadname”—the name someone was given at birth and no longer uses upon transitioning. While deadname does not appear in legislation, the word was used in media coverage of the issue.
2023年度词汇
Word of the Year 2023
'Authentic,' plus 'rizz,' 'deepfake,' 'coronation,' and other words that defined the year
27 Nov 2023
后8个
logo for x formerly twitter
X
Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter as X sent many people to the dictionary to learn more about this unusually flexible letter. It doesn’t just represent a letter and its sound, but also has various meanings and functions: for example, it stands for “an unknown quantity,” it’s a symbol for the act of multiplication, and it is used as a substitute for “by” in measurements, as in “The room was 10’x15’.”
Other letters carry meaning by themselves, (think of F for “failure” or to a T meaning “perfection”), but X has a mystique all its own. Linguist Marcel Danesi was quoted as commenting that X “reverberates with all kinds of meanings that are intuitive, unconscious, and archetypal.”
Lookups for X spiked 885% on July 23, the date of the rebranding announcement, although the value of the platform has declined significantly since then.
rendering of a deep sea submersible
Implode
When a submersible attempting to visit the wreck of the Titanic disappeared in June, the search made international headlines. Titan, the world eventually learned, had imploded.
While explode is a common word, implode is encountered less frequently; people turned to the dictionary to understand it. Something that implodes bursts inward or undergoes violent compression—in this case, from the immense water pressure two miles below the ocean’s surface. The noun implosion also saw a dramatic increase in lookups.
Submersible itself was also a top lookup. A submersible is a small underwater craft used for deep-sea research.
two women who look alike meet each other on the street
Doppelgänger
Doppelgänger saw multiple lookup spikes from independent events. Media coverage of two crimes—one in Germany and one in New York, each involving the murder or attempted murder of someone’s lookalike—focused on the word. So did a story about two minor league baseball players who, despite sharing professions, names, and similar physical features (height, coloring, glasses), were shown via a DNA test to be unrelated. And September saw the release of Naomi Klein’s book, Doppelgänger: A Trip Into the Mirror World.
Doppelgänger can refer to a living person that closely resembles another living person—that is, a double; or it can refer to the opposite side of one’s personality. In German folklore a Doppelgänger is a ghostly counterpart of a living person. The word is formed from two words that together mean “double goer.”
business man in a gray suit passes you a sealed scroll
Covenant
Several very different stories contributed to an increase in lookups for covenant, defined as “a formal, solemn, and binding agreement” or “a written agreement or promise.”
A tragic shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27th coincided with the first spike in lookups for covenant. The word remained higher during the April release of Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, a film depicting the rescue of an Afghan interpreter who had saved the life of a U.S. soldier in combat. In May, a much-anticipated new novel by Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water, became an instant bestseller featured in Oprah’s Book Club. Finally, reports in early November revealed that the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, uses an app called Covenant Eyes to monitor the websites he visits, by sharing them automatically with an accountability partner, in this case Johnson’s teenage son.
Covenant has a religious resonance because of its use in the Bible. It appears over 200 times in the King James Version of the Bible, mostly in the Old Testament, referring to promises of different kinds, sometimes between people, and sometimes between individuals and God. In the Book of Exodus, covenant refers to the Ten Commandments.
a gavel resting on a block
Indict
Indict was often in the news this year. Former President Donald Trump was indicted in four separate cases now moving through the legal system, and indict spiked by 9440% on March 30, when a New York City grand jury charged the former president in the hush-money case.
Indict is defined as “to charge with a crime by the finding or presentment of a jury (such as a grand jury) in due form of law.” Like most words in our legal vocabulary, indict comes from French (others include judge, jury, arraign, appeal, and acquit).
The silent c in indict is the result of scholars in the Renaissance “correcting” the spelling of the French borrowing by adding the c from its Latin ancestor. Before their tampering, the word was spelled indite.
a splash of water meets a lick of flame
Elemental
In June, the title of the new Pixar film Elemental made lookups spike. Appropriately enough, this title employs the original and oldest meaning of element: “any of the four substances air, water, fire, and earth formerly believed to compose the physical universe.”
With characters that embody fire, water, earth, and air as anthropomorphized qualities, the film’s plot becomes an allegory about identity and prejudice.
aerial view of an israeli kibbutz
Kibbutz
When Hamas launched attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7th, civilians living in kibbutzim were among the targets. A term unfamiliar to many outside Israel, kibbutz refers to a communal farm or settlement in Israel.
Other terms relating to Hamas’s attack and Israel’s military response that saw an increase in lookups were blood libel and intifada.
stack of official documents certificate of vital records
Deadname
Deadname saw a large increase in lookups in March with “Parental Rights” bills being considered in several states. Such bills require schools to use what many transgender supporters call a “deadname”—the name someone was given at birth and no longer uses upon transitioning. While deadname does not appear in legislation, the word was used in media coverage of the issue.
