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Words of the Year

2017 Word of the Year: Behind the Scenes

Editor Peter Sokolowski talks about 'feminism' and the rest of our Word of the Year 2017 selections


How did we choose feminism as our Word of the Year? Peter Sokolowski explains the data behind our decisions, and how these words reflect what was on people's minds this year.


Don't miss our in-depth look at feminism and our gallery of top trending words from 2017.

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2017 Word of the Year: Behind the Scenes

 

How we chose 'feminism'

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'Poets laureate'? 'Court-martials'? The curious history of postpositive adjectives in English.

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The landmark edition that transformed the way dictionaries are made.

Games & Quizzes

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Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Word Game You can make only 12 words. Pick the best ones!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
Missing Letter A crossword with a twist
winning words from the national spelling bee logo
Spelling Bee Quiz Can you outdo past winners of the National Spelli...