The scales have tipped in favor of Merriam-Webster’s word of the year — “justice.”
The multi-use noun was the most looked-up word on the dictionary publisher’s website in 2018, the company announced Monday.
Merriam-Webster noted that its annual selection was driven, in part, by the slew of news stories involving the Department of Justice amid Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference.
But, the company added in a press release, “very specific uses of the word also drove curiosity this year, as seen with the spike in lookups of obstruction of justice in August, when President Trump tweeted his wish for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to stop the Mueller investigation.”
“Abstract concepts” are often among the most looked up terms, according to one of the company’s word nerds.
“When common words like justice are used in contexts that are very specific, technical, or legal, people look them up in the dictionary for the detail and nuance that a definition can provide,” said Merriam-Webster’s associate editor and editorial ambassador Emily Brewster.
“For many reasons and for many meanings, one thing’s for sure: justice has been on the minds of many people in 2018.”
Other trending words this year were “lodestar” — the archaic term that popped up in the bombshell New York Times op-ed written by an anonymous senior White House official about the “quiet resistance” against Trump.
The words “epiphany” — in connection with K-pop group BTS’s smash hit — and “pansexual” — which is how singer Janelle Monae identified herself in a Rolling Stone story — also saw search increases.
Meanwhile, the deaths of prominent figures triggered a spike in specific word searches — “maverick” for Sen. John McCain, “excelsior” for comic book maven Stan Lee, and “respect” for songstress Aretha Franklin.