The words and phrases that defined the decade

We shape language as much as it shapes us. And it's constantly evolving.

The top 10 words and phrases that defined this past decade aren’t all necessarily new, but they did gain mainstream popularity, relevance, and acceptance between 2010-2019. To crown these winning terms, we consulted with a swath of experts, including internet linguist and author of Because Internet, Gretchen McCulloch; Ponoma College sociolinguist Nicole Holliday, as well as Dictionary.com's lexicographer Heather Bonikowski and senior research editor John Kelly.

Whether or not the following words and phrases — and the many more they spawned over time (bolded throughout) — have short or long lives after the decade, they certainly captured the ideas and phenomenons that ruled this moment in our zeitgeist. Read more...