The Words of the Week - June 20
Dictionary lookups from Juneteenth, politics, and Matagorda Bay
‘Juneteenth’
Lookups for Juneteenth were high this week, as they are every year at this time.
This year’s Juneteenth gatherings in Houston offer an array of opportunities to learn, experience and celebrate Black history and excellence. … The Bayou City is home to several celebrations for Juneteenth, commemorating when Union troops arrived in Galveston to announce the end of slavery, more than two years after the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
—Jay R. Jordan, Axios, 17 June 2025
Juneteenth is June 19 observed as a legal holiday in the United States in commemoration of the end of slavery in the U.S. The federal name for this holiday according to the United States Code is Juneteenth National Independence Day. It is also called Black Independence Day, Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Juneteenth Independence Day.
‘Discrimination’
A federal court ruling led to increased lookups for the word discrimination.
In a harshly worded ruling Monday, a federal judge in Boston accused the Trump administration of discrimination against minorities and LGBTQ+ individuals and ordered the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, to reinstate hundreds of research grants, declaring the agency's termination of them “illegal and void.” … “I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this,” US District Court Judge William G. Young, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan, said in the hearing. “Is it true of our society as a whole? Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?”
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We define two relevant, closely related senses of discrimination as “prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment” (as in “racial discrimination”) and “the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually.”
‘Antifa’
Lookups for antifa were higher than usual this week.
The focus shifted in the afternoon, on the news that Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, had been forcibly removed and handcuffed when he interrupted a news conference in Los Angeles being held by the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem. Some Democratic members requested an investigation into the episode, prompting some chaos on the floor. Representative Maxwell Frost, Democrat of Florida, sparred with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who called Mr. Frost a member of antifa, a loosely organized left-wing anti-fascist movement that has been the focus of many misleading Republican claims. … After a short break, Ms. Greene agreed to amend her remarks on Mr. Frost to make it clear he was not a member of antifa. But tensions remained high.
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Antifa can be understood as a shortened form of the word anti-fascist, and like that word, it’s both an adjective and a noun. The adjectival use is straightforward (“antifa protestors/groups” are protestors/groups opposed to fascism). We define two senses of the noun, one referring to a person or group actively opposing fascism, and another for an anti-fascist movement.
‘Existential’
Lookups for existential were also high this week.
The latest escalation erupted last week after Israel launched strikes targeting Iran's top military commanders, uranium enrichment facilities, and nuclear scientists—actions it described as essential to preventing its longtime rival from advancing toward a nuclear weapon, which Israel views as an existential threat. Iran, however, insists its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.
—Demonstrators crowded into streets, parks and plazas across the U.S. on Saturday to protest President Donald Trump, marching through downtowns and blaring anti-authoritarian chants mixed with support for protecting democracy and immigrant rights. … “We’re here because we're worried about the existential crisis of this country and the planet and our species,” said Sean Kryston, 28.
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We define the relevant sense of existential as “of, relating to, or affirming existence.” Existential is also used as a synonym of empirical meaning “grounded in existence or the experience of existence,” as a synonym of existentialist, and to mean “having being in time and space.”
‘Comptroller’
Lookups for comptroller began spiking on Tuesday following the arrest of New York City’s comptroller by ICE agents.
ICE agents arrested New York City Comptroller Brad Lander in a lower Manhattan courthouse Tuesday as he sought to observe immigration proceedings amid the Trump administration's controversial “mass deportation” crackdown. Lander, a leading candidate in next week's Democratic mayoral primary, could be seen in video provided by his team getting surrounded by a group of masked ICE agents who pressed him up against a wall and handcuffed him on the 12th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, where asylum cases are heard. “I’m not obstructing, I’m standing right here in the hallway, I asked to see the judicial warrant,” Lander can be heard saying in the video as the agents cuff him. “You don’t have authority to arrest a U.S. citizen asking for a judicial warrant.”
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The relevant sense of comptroller is defined as “a public official who audits government accounts and sometimes certifies expenditures.”
‘Nurdle’
Nurdle was briefly a top lookup on Monday.
The first study of microplastics in Texas bay sediment has researchers warning that the harmful grains and fibers are being swept out to sea. … The recent study found surprisingly low levels of harmful microplastics in the sediments of Texas bays that are notorious for plastic pollution. It was focused on the Matagorda Bay system, where two major plastics manufacturers operate Formosa Plastics Corp. and Dow Chemical Co. The bay system has high documented levels of pollution from plastic nurdles—granular pellets that float on the water.
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Nurdle is a non-technical term that refers to a plastic pellet that is usually less than 0.2 inch (0.5 centimeter) in diameter or length, that is the raw material from which plastic products are manufactured, and that is a common pollutant of global waters and beaches.
Word Worth Knowing: ‘Irenic’
In Greek mythology, Eirene was one of the Horae, the goddesses of the seasons and natural order who in the Iliad are the custodians of the gates of Olympus. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, the Horae were the daughters of Zeus and a Titaness named Themis, and each had a name indicating her function and relation to human life. Eirene (in Greek Eirēnē, meaning “peace”) was the goddess of peace. Her name gave rise to not only irenic but to Irena (the genus name of two species of birds found in southern Asia and the Philippines), and the name Irene.
