Nailed It: Merriam-Webster's 2016 Word of the Year is 'Surreal'

Dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster has announced that its word of the year is “surreal.” I submit that this is only because there is no single word in the English language that means “If the world gets any more jacked up I swear to everything that’s holy that I will stab myself in the liver with a plastic flamingo, I sh** you not. Seriously, who ordered this clusterf*** anyway?”

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That word probably only exists in German.

The dictionary company Merriam-Webster announced that “surreal” was its word of the year for 2016. The adjective is defined by the company as something that has been “marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream.”

In a statement, the company said “surreal” is “often looked up spontaneously in moments of both tragedy and surprise, whether or not it is used in speech or writing.”

This year has seen more than its share of tragedy and surprise, with a heaping helping of flat-out weird.

There were three distinct events this past year that led to the word’s popularity in searches, according to Merriam-Webster: the Brussels terror attacks in March, the failed coup in Turkey in July, and the U.S. presidential election in November.

The company said the word of the year was not surprising to them.

“We often search for just the right word to help us bring order to abstract thoughts, emotions, or reactions,” Merriam-Webster said in a statement. “Surreal seems to be, for 2016, such a word.”

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In all seriousness, this has been a strange year to say the least. The word fits.

Other words that saw unusual spikes in interest this year with Merriam-Webster were: “Revenant,” “icon,” “In Omnia Paratus,” “bigly,” “deplorable,” “irregardless,” “assumpsit,” “Faute de Mieux,” and “feckless.”

Irregardless of what you may think, this has been a deplorable year. Bigly deplorable.

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