Q 01/05

Which emoji did Oxford Dictionaries name Word of the Year for 2015, the year it topped global usage charts?

A) Face with Tears of Joy

B) Loudly Crying Face

C) Smiling Face with Sunglasses

D) Face Blowing a Kiss

Answer · why

A) Face with Tears of Joy

Face with Tears of Joy made up a fifth of all emoji sent in Britain that year, so Oxford's judges picked a pictograph over every actual word.

Q 02/05

Which word, first seen in a 2002 message on an Australian web forum, was Oxford's Word of the Year for 2013?

A) Twerk

B) Podcast

C) Selfie

D) Emoji

Answer · why

C) Selfie

Selfie surfaced when an Australian shared a photo of the lip he had split in a drunken fall at a friend's 21st birthday. Eleven years later the word w...

Q 03/05

Which word did Dictionary.com name Word of the Year for 2020 after searches for it leapt 13,575 percent in one day?

A) Coronavirus

B) Epidemic

C) Outbreak

D) Pandemic

Answer · why

D) Pandemic

Pandemic was also Merriam-Webster's choice for 2020, where lookups spiked 115,806 percent on the day the World Health Organization applied the term to...

Q 04/05

Which pronoun did Merriam-Webster name its 2019 Word of the Year after lookups rose 313 percent in twelve months?

A) They

B) Zir

C) Whom

D) Y'all

Answer · why

A) They

They won after Merriam-Webster added a new sense in September 2019: a pronoun for one person whose gender identity is nonbinary.

Q 05/05

Which three-letter word did Oxford Languages name Word of the Year for 2021 after its use rose 72-fold?

A) Jab

B) Sus

C) App

D) Vax

Answer · why

D) Vax

Vax won because it bred so many spin-offs, from vax cards and vax sites to being fully vaxxed. Oxford's editors called it a rare word until that year.