The editors of ‘Merriam-Webster’ analyzed the top searches over the past few months to select the winning term. According to Peter Sokolowski, a researcher involved in the survey, the spike in searches was driven by a crisis of authenticity amid the boom in artificial intelligence.
Questions like whether a student wrote an essay themselves or used ChatGPT, or if the lyrics of a famous singer’s song were plagiarized, have become common. The authenticity of posts shared by relatives on social media, often suspected of being fake news, also raises doubts.
These concerns likely spurred a steady increase in searches for the term “authentic” in 2023, making it the word of the year, as announced by the editors of the ‘Merriam-Webster’ dictionary on Monday (27).
“We witnessed a sort of crisis of authenticity in 2023,” said Peter Sokolowski, a representative of the research team, while announcing the winner. “What we realized is that when we question authenticity, we value it even more.”
To choose the word of the year, the dictionary:
- Examines the most searched terms.
- Excludes generic terms that are always searched, like “love”.
- Also omits random, 5-letter words searched by players of “Wordle,” an online word-guessing game.
In 2022, the winner was “gaslighting,” which means “the act or practice of grossly deceiving someone, especially for personal advantage.”
This year, following “authentic,” the list included, not necessarily in this order:
🔴”X”: the new name of the social network Twitter; 🔴”EGOT”: a term used when an artist wins the four major entertainment awards: Emmy (TV), Grammy (music), Tony (theater), and Oscar (cinema). In 2023, Viola Davis achieved this feat, leading to an increase in searches. 🔴”Elemental”: the name of a new Pixar movie; 🔴”Rizz”: slang mainly used on TikTok for someone who has charm or charisma and can win others over. ‘Merriam-Webster’ added the word to the dictionary in September. 🔴”Kibbutz”: collective agricultural communities in Israel. They were attacked by Hamas at the start of the war.
Authentic is defined as:
- Worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact. Example: “He paints an authentic picture of our society.”
- Conforming to an original in replicating essential features. Example: “An authentic reproduction of a colonial farm.”
- Made the same way as the original. Example: “Authentic Mexican food.”
- Not false or an imitation. Example: “An authentic accent.”
- True to one’s own personality, spirit, or character. Example: “She is a sincere and authentic person.”
