Youthquake named Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year

Youthquake has been named the Word of the Year 2017 by editors from Oxford Dictionaries, whose publications include the Oxford English Dictionary.

The word, defined as “a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people” beat out the likes of antifa and gorpcore to top the list.

The term itself is not new - it was first coined by then-Vogue editor Diana Vreeland in the 1960s to describe the rising tide of youth culture, according to Oxford Dictionaries. But in a year which saw a general election mobilise young voters like few have done before, the editors believe the word is more relevant than ever.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

However, the response to the choice has largely been one of confusion, with many Twitter users saying they had never heard of the supposedly game-changing word of 2017:

Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Dictionaries, acknowledged that youthquake “may not seem like the most obvious choice for Word of the Year” but pointed to a 401% increase in usage between 2016 and 2017 as “strong evidence” that it is the word to watch.

“Sometimes you pick a word as the Word of the Year because you recognise that it has arrived, but other times you pick one that is knocking at the door and you want to help usher it in,” he said in a blog post. “This past year calls for a word we can all rally behind.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the first year of the Trump presidency, the shortlist had a decidedly political bent, including words like “antifa” - the anti-fascist protesters who have clashed with US white nationalists - and kompromat, the Russian term for compromising informations.

Terms of political disparagement like “broflake” and “white fragility” also reflected an increasingly polarised debate over social justice.

But there were some more lighthearted suggestions, too, such as “unicorn”, increasingly used as an adjective to denote things decorated in over-the-top fashion, such as rainbow colours and sparkles.

Here are all the nominees:

Antifa - a political protest movement comprising autonomous groups affiliated by their militant opposition to fascism and other forms of extreme right-wing ideology

broflake - a man who is readily upset or offended by progressive attitudes that conflict with his more conventional or conservative views

gorpcore - a style of dress incorporating utilitarian clothing of a type worn for outdoor activities

kompromat - compromising information collected for use in blackmailing, discrediting, or manipulating someone, typically for political purposes

Milkshake Duck - a person or thing that initially inspires delight on social media but is soon revealed to have a distasteful or repugnant past

newsjacking - the practice of taking advantage of current events or news stories in such a way as to promote or advertise one’s product or brand

unicorn - denoting something, especially an item of food or drink, that is dyed in rainbow colours, decorated with glitter, etc.

white fragility - discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice