Merriam-Webster Dictionary said Tuesday that White House counselor Kellyanne Conway played a big role in its decision to declare “feminism” the Word of the Year for 2017.
The company said it noted several spikes in online searches of the word at various points in the year after President Trump was sworn into office in late January.
“Feminism spiked following news coverage of the Women’s March on Washington, DC in January (and other related marches held around the country and internationally), and follow-up discussions regarding whether the march was feminist, and what kind of feminism was represented by organizers and attendees,” Merriam-Webster said in a statement.
“The word spiked again when Kellyanne Conway said during an interview that she didn’t consider herself a feminist. In this case, the definition of feminism was itself the subject of the news story — an invitation for many people to look up the word,” it added.
The dictionary defined feminism as “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” and “organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.”
Interest in the dictionary definition of feminism was also driven by entertainment this year. The word was searched after the release of both Hulu’s series “The Handmaid’s Tale” and the film “Wonder Woman.”
The company also announced several other searched-for words of the year: complicit, recuse, empathy, dotard, syzygy, gyro, federalism, hurricane, and gaffe.
