Feminism has been named the word of the year by the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
The U.S. dictionary said that it seen an increase in online searches for the word in 2017, to up to 70 percent if compared to 2016. The largest spike in searches of the word came in January, following the Women’s March in Washington DC and around the world.
Then in February, searches again spiked when U.S. president Donald Trump’s spokesperson Kellyanne Conway said at a conservative conference that she didn’t consider herself a feminist because she was not "anti-male" and "pro-abortion". She said that she was a "product of my choices, not a victim of my circumstances", which she described as "conservative feminism".
Another time was when Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual harassment of women in Hollywood were revealed, and when the #MeToo movement happened.
Merriam-Webster defines feminism as:
2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests.
The word feminism first entered an English dictionary in 1841, by Noah Webster, when it was defined simply as “the qualities of females”.
New words that came up as much-researched word in 2017, also include "complicit" which has been widely used in stories about President Trump's firing of FBI director James Comey and about the inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Interest spiked further up when President Trump's daughter, Ivanka, said she did not know what the word meant.
These are the reasons why 'complicit' was chosen as Dictionary.com's word of the year.
Another word was "dotard", which North Korean leader Kim Jong-un used to describe President Trump.
