Xenophobia: Dictionary.com Picks 2016 Word of the Year

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Dictionary.com has selected the term “xenophobia” as its Word of the Year for 2016.

Xenophobia, Word of the Year, Dictionary.comDictionary.com has two definitions for xenophobia. They are as follows.

  • “Fear or hatred of foreigners, people from different cultures, or strangers.”
  • “Fear or dislike of the customs, dress, etc., of people who are culturally different from oneself.”

According to Dictionary.com, it selects a word “that embodies a major theme resonating deeply in the cultural consciousness over the prior 12 months,” when choosing the Word of the Year. Xenophobia was chosen due to the interest in it from the websites own trending lookup data.

The website claims that it saw a 938% increase in lookups for the term xenophobia on June 24. This was the day following the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, which is called the Brexit.

The next largest search for the term xenophobia came just a few days later on June 29. This was the day that President Barack Obama gave a speech where he expressed concern over current President-elect Donald’s Trumps political rhetoric.

Dictionary.com says that it can gauge interest in a word, but that it can’t actually pin down why users are interested in it. Xenophobia is actually a fairly new term. It was added in the late 1800s and gets its meaning from two Greek terms. The first is xénos, which means “stranger, guest.” The second is phóbos, which means “fear, panic.”

You can follow this link to learn more about Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year for 2016.

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