Merriam-Webster declares ‘ism’ as word of the year for 2015

And so for the first time since the American dictionary-maker began declaring a “word of the year” in 2003, the company announced Tuesday that this year’s choice is a suffix, one of the most productive and underappreciated parts of speech.

Dictionary.com did go with a word for word of the year, which was “identity”.

Dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2015 isn’t a word, it’s the suffix “ism”.

Perhaps this suggests that people are becoming interested in some of the wider ideologies and movements which quietly (and sometimes loudly) impact our lives everyday?

However if you are a guy you only spouted about 2,555,000.

It was also aided by searches for federalism, Marxism, masochism and professionalism.

“We had a lot on our minds this year”, mused Peter Sokolowski, the…

“Fascism we more closely associate as the response to various acts of terrorism”. After the attacks in Paris and the attacks in Colorado Springs and in San Bernardino, and because of Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims, we then see the word fascism spike, ‘ he said. Caitlyn Jenner, the film “Mad Max”, Emma Watson and Hillary Clinton are also factors that are believed to contribute to the popularity of searching feminism.

At the top of Merriam-Webster’s lookup list was socialism, boosted by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ assertion that he is an adherent of democratic socialism and the vast ensuing confusion among voters about what Democratic socialism actually is.

Some of the most prominent “isms”, according to what the dictionary company told the Associated Press about its traffic: socialism, fascism, racism, feminism, communism, capitalism and terrorism.

“Inspiration still kind of baffles us”, Morse said. This follows Oxford Dictionaries’ decision last month to name an emoji (the tears of joy emoji, to be specific) which is even less a word than a suffix is, as their word of the year.

Now, that may seem like cheating, but as they explain, “a small group of words that share this three-letter ending triggered both high volume and significant year-over-year increase”.