Coming up on Word Matters, more words of 2021.
I'm Emily Brewster and Word Matters is produced by Merriam-Webster in collaboration with New England Public Media.
On each episode, Merriam-Webster editors Amon Shea,
Peter Sakalowski and I explore some aspect of the English language from the dictionary's vantage point.
When Marion Webster announces its word of the year,
we also identify other words of significance from that year.
From politics to sports to the movies,
Peter and I are going to explain how each one came to be on this exclusive list.
So the 2021 Word of the Year for Merriam-Webster is vaccine, but every year we also identify,
based on lookups at merriam-webster.com, other words of significance.
Sometimes those words show the same kind of repeated spikes in lookups,
or they have a really prolonged interest throughout the year that makes them also contenders for that Word of the Year position,
and then others just have really remarkable numbers of lookups at very particular times.
So one of the runners up
though for the word of the year was a very interesting word that also was looked up a great deal throughout the year.
That word is insurrection.
Yes, starting January 6th.
And the fact is it's one of those things that as soon as you hear the word it rings true.
Oh yes, this was one of the major stories of the year and indeed.
Our data shows something remarkable, which is that on January 7th,