Dictionary spotlight

What is nomophobia? And 9 other words that defined their year

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Each year, dictionaries and linguistic societies worldwide select a "word of the year" to capture a part of the essence of global conversations, trends, or cultural shifts. Often serving as a snapshot of society’s biggest preoccupations or passions at that point in time, these words can be fun, poignant, and sometimes even controversial. Here are ten selected choices from past years, ranging from strange numeronyms like Y2K to whimsical verbs like "to be plutoed."

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Coined by comedian Stephen Colbert, "truthiness" describes things that feel true, even when they aren’t. The satirical concept highlights how dishonest media often appeals to emotion and "gut feelings" over rational thinking and actual facts.

The term became so popular that it won the American Dialect Society’s "Word of the Year" in 2005 and Merriam-Webster’s in 2006. Interestingly, some linguists noted that a similar word already existed in English literature, although with a meaning closer to "truthfulness" or "faithfulness."

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The supposed Y2K "millennium bug" caused widespread panic as the year 2000 approached, with predictions of technological catastrophes due to a theoretical software error related to the date change after 1999.

Selected by various language authorities, Y2K captured millennial anxieties. Fortunately, despite intense fears, the Y2K bug resulted in minimal actual disruption.

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After Pluto’s reclassification as a dwarf planet in 2006, the whimsical verb "to be plutoed" emerged, essentially meaning "to be demoted." The American Dialect Society selected it to humorously mark Pluto’s abrupt change in status.

As a unique instance where planetary reclassification and public discourse converged, the term became a metaphor for any reduction in rank. It also captured a bit of the public’s emotional response to Pluto’s unexpected downgrading.

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What’s worse than a dumpster full of trash? A dumpster full of trash on fire. A descriptor for something disastrously out of control, "dumpster fire" was the American Dialect Society’s choice for 2016.

Originally used in sports, the term "dumpster fire" quickly gained broader popularity that year, becoming a go-to phrase for chaotic situations—a usage that remains popular today.

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Originating from Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s description of the Gulf War as "the mother of all battles," the term quickly became a widely used phrase to emphasize something as the ultimate or most significant of its kind. It was used for all sorts of exaggerated statements.

Technically an idiom, "mother of all –" demonstrates how easily language can adopt new meanings and ideas from almost any source, from global politics to scientific endeavors, leading to expressions that take on a life beyond their original context.

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Ever had your phone die on you right when you needed it most? You might have experienced a bit of "nomophobia." This curious term, coined in 2009 in the UK, is a shortened form of "no-mobile-phone-phobia."

As smartphone dependence has soared in recent years, the term has gained increasing prominence, reflecting a new anxiety of the digital era.

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The word "homer" (a baseball term for a home run) became a sensation after appearing in The New York Times' popular Wordle game. Frustrated players had their lucky streaks interrupted when they encountered the word, bringing it into the spotlight.

Worldwide searches for "homer" highlighted not only the influence a game can have on language but also the public's growing interest in exploring the vast depths of our shared vocabulary.

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As fashion shifted toward more sustainability-focused trends, the term "upcycling" became a buzzword, referring to the process of transforming waste into items of higher value. It is the opposite of downcycling, which is another part of the recycling process.

This intriguing concept encourages people to repurpose materials that would typically go to waste in both creative and useful ways.

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Selected by Collins Dictionary, "photobomb" describes the act of unexpectedly appearing in someone’s photo, often with humorous results.

As selfies and casual photography grew in popularity, photobombing became an art of surprise and comedy, evolving into a topic of conversation and even competition across social media.

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This term, chosen by the American Dialect Society, referred to President George H.W. Bush’s famous "Read my lips: No new taxes" pledge during his 1988 Republican nomination—a promise he later broke, frustrating many of his supporters.

"Bushlips" became popular as it encapsulated public disappointment in political promises and became shorthand for unkept pledges. The term is also a wordplay on a less polite expression that can refer to something untrue.

Ready, set, vocabulary!

Learn these 10 sport-related expressions and win hands down!

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Popular idioms appear in conversation all over the English-speaking world every minute of the day and we hardly ever stop to think about where they come from. Have you ever heard someone say "I'll have to start from scratch"? Have you wondered what "in the nick of time" means? What all these expressions have in common is that they originated in the world of sports. Want to know more? Get the upper hand and discover all those phrases you often say but didn’t know are related to games and sports!

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Down to the wire is an idiom used to describe a situation, sporting or otherwise, whose outcome is not decided until the very last minute. This expression comes from horse racing and experts suggest it originated in America in the late 19th century.

Before the days of televised sports, racetracks would string a wire across the finishing line above the riders’ heads. A steward would then be placed at a vantage point, looking down the line so that a winner could be more easily established during neck-and-neck finishes. The first written record of the phrase can be found in an 1889 article from Scribers Magazine and since then it has been widely used, even today.

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You’ve probably used this expression many times, but did you know it has a sport-related origin? The phrase can be easily traced back to the 19th century when sporting referees, who usually wore hats, would raise one into the air, alerting competitors to be ready. Then, they would drop it to signal the start of the event. The method was commonly used in boxing and horseracing, where the races or matches were considered started "at the drop of a hat".

Nowadays, the phrase is used to imply something would be carried out immediately, without delay. It is sometimes thought to be of American origin but the practice has long been used by English-speaking people on both sides of the Atlantic.

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To have the upper hand implies that a person has the advantage or control over someone or something in a particular situation. In sports, when a team goes first in a game we say they have the upper hand. But where exactly did this expression originate? Well, there are many theories and none are definitive.

Some suggest that this phrase dates back to the 15th century and is related to an obsolete pastime. In this game, the first player grips a shaft at the bottom end while the next places their hand just above it until the upper end of the shaft is reached. Finally, when the last person takes the last grip, it means they have the "upper hand".

Later, in the 20th century, this method of finding a random winner was often used in baseball and cricket when hands would be placed on a bat and the last to take a grip got to play the game first.

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Have you ever embarked on a foolish and hopeless search for something unattainable? Then probably, even figuratively, you were involved in a wild goose chase. A wild goose chase is a fruitless pursuit with no hope of a successful outcome and was coined in England in the late 16th century.

Back in the 1500s, it was an expression used in relation to a kind of equestrian sport in which all the competitors had to follow accurately the course of the leader at definite intervals, like a flight of wild geese. The term was regularly applied to the sport but it appears to have been Shakespeare who altered the meaning to one of hopeless pursuit.

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Nowadays, to start from scratch is a saying we use to illustrate starting again from the beginning, regardless of how much we have already achieved of a task. However, in medieval times it had a more literal meaning.

Back then, in certain sports like cricket, horse racing, or boxing, a line or mark was "scratched" into the ground by either a sword or a javelin to indicate the point from which competitors had to start. If they cut corners, they would have to start again from this scratch.

Over the years this idiom has been shortened to from scratch and is also used to indicate that we are going to start something with no assistance, for example, a recipe that we make using every ingredient raw instead of processed foods.

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When something gets done in the nick of time it has been done at the very last possible minute, before it was too late. Achieving things just at the critical moment can make us nervous, but when it comes to sports, scoring just before the clock determines the end of the game can change the mood of more than one fan.

In this case, nick is used in the sense of "the precise moment of an occurrence or an event." However, the literal form of the phrase dates from the late 16th century when a tallyman would keep the scores for team games. This person would carve a nick or dent in a piece of wood each time a team scored and if the winning nick was added during the last minute it was known as the "nick in time."

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When someone has lost their bottle they have lost their nerve and their bravery. Contrary to what you may think, this expression has nothing to do with liquor courage. In fact, this phrase originates from the world of bare-knuckle prizefighting during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In a fighter’s corner, one of his seconds was known as "the bottle man" and his job was to supply water to a fighter between rounds. Without water, a fighter was unable to continue and sometimes it was known for cornermen to be asked to walk away and leave when a fighter was taking a beating, to provide an excuse for him to drop out. The phrase "lost his bottleman" was later shortened and popularly used to describe cowardly behavior.

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This is a widely used expression in the world of sport but it has extended to all aspects of life. To win hands down suggests a very comfortable, easy victory. Its roots can be found not in poker but in horse racing. In the 19th century, winning hands down meant that a jockey was so certain of his victory in the closing stages of a race that he could lower his hands and relax his grip on the reins.

Even today, when a jockey is winning comfortably he can gallop down the finishing straight without using his whip to encourage the nag along. The shortened version hands down is a metaphor of ease extended beyond the domain of horse racing and is used today to convey "without a doubt, no question."

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If someone's name, an idea, or a story are bandied about it means they are being discussed frequently by many people in a casual or informal way. What you probably didn't know is that this phrase originated in France and is related to the world of sports.

The game of Bander was an early form of tennis and involved hitting a ball to and fro. Later, in the 1600s, the Irish invented a team game, a hockey predecessor, that required a group of people bandying a ball between them. They called the sport Bande after the French game because of the similarities between the two ideas. Also, they used a crooked stick that later led to the term bandy-legged to refer to those with bow legs.

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Simply put, across the board means all-encompassing, wide-ranging, and applying to all. Like many of the idioms included in this article, this one also has roots in horse racing. In the U.S., this expression referred to a bet in which equal amounts were staked on the same horse to win, place, or show in a race.

In the 19th century, large boards would be used to display the odds on a horse to come first, second, or third in a given race. A popular bet was to place an even amount of money on just one horse for every possible outcome. This was known as an "across-the-board bet".

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