Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Navy Toxic in a literal sense.
The Oxford English Dictionary, that most storied of all English-language reference books — having inspired the 1998 best seller “The Professor and the Madman” — has announced its word of the year for 2018, and, forgoing further ado, it is:
‘Toxic.’
The dictionary publisher says look-ups for the adjective were up 45% this year, an increase attributed to its use in environmental and political contexts, as well as in connection with the year’s #metoo tales (cf. toxic masculinity).
On the word-of-the-year shortlist alongside toxic were gaslighting and incel and several other notable terms.
Newly included in the OED this year are more than 1,400 words and phrases, ranging from asshat to fam to idiocracy to — trigger warning for language purists (note: trigger warning was enshrined by OED four years ago) — bonified, as derived, how ever imperfectly, from bona fide. More than 100 new OED entries come from the worlds of movies and movie making alone. These include to eleven, as in that most famous of all “This Is Spinal Tap” lines.
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