Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year 2015 isn't even a word — it's an emoji

Oxford Dictionaries&#039; 2015 Word of the Year

(Image credit: Twitter.com/OxfordWords)

The "face with tears of joy" emoji has been named the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year, The University of Pennsylvania's Language Log blog reports.

Here's a bit of the reasoning, from the press release:

This year Oxford University Press partnered with leading mobile technology business SwiftKey to explore frequency and usage statistics for some of the most popular emoji across the world. "Face with Tears of Joy" came out a clear winner. According to SwiftKey's research, "Face with Tears of Joy" was the most heavily used emoji globally in 2015. Their research shows that the character comprised 20 percent of all emoji used in the U.K. in 2015, and 17 percent of all emoji used in the U.S. This compared to 4 percent and 9 percent respectively in 2014. In the U.S. the next most popular emoji was "Face Throwing a Kiss," comprising 9 percent of all usage. [Oxford Dictionaries]

For what it's worth, the runners-up were actual "words" (whatever that even means anymore). The tears-of-joy emoji beat out ad blocker, Brexit, dark web, lumbersexual, on fleek, refugee, sharing economy, and they, The Herald Sun reports.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.