2015年的年度词汇是什么?

AS IT IS 2015-12-22 What Is the 2015 Word of the Year? 2015年的年度词汇是什么?

The American dictionary Merriam-Webster’s 2015 Word of the Year is not even a word. It is a three-letter suffix¹: -ism.

-Ism is a noun suffix. Merriam-Webster.com defines it as the act, practice, or process of doing something. Major –ism words in 2015 centered on politics, beliefs, and discrimination.

Merriam-Webster chooses its Word of the Year based on how many people look up each word in its online dictionary. It found that seven of the highest-ranking words this year ended in -ism.

One of the highest-ranking -ism words in 2015 was ‘socialism.’ Socialism is a political theory, and a way or organizing a society in which the government, rather than individuals, controls major industries.

Online searches for ‘socialism’ in 2015 increased 169% from last year.

The word’s popularity came from the U.S. presidential race. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders is a senator from the state of Vermont. He describes himself as a democratic socialist². The term has confused -- and troubled -- some American voters.

The editors at Merriam-Webster say the number of searches for ‘socialism’ increased during Sanders’ campaign events in July. Searches for the word increased again after the first Democratic presidential debate in October.

Other popular -ism words reflect major news events of the year, too. There was a large increase in searches for words like terrorism, fascism, racism³ and feminism.

The word terrorism was most frequently looked up after the shootings and bombings in Paris, France, San Bernardino, California, and Colorado Springs, Colorado.

After the attack in California, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump⁴ spoke⁵ about banning Muslims from coming to the United States. After Trump’s speech, Merriam Webster saw an increase in look-ups for the word fascism. The editors defined fascism as “a political philosophy…that exalts⁷ nation and often race above the individual.”

The protests at the University of Missouri and police violence around the country led to search increases for the word racism in 2015. Racism is defined as poor treatment of or violence against people because of their race.

Another top -ism word was feminism, the belief that women should have equal rights to men. The dictionary’s editors said that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the media reports on Caitlyn Jenner, who changed her gender⁸, drove the increase in searches of ‘feminism.’

Two more political theories – capitalism⁹ and communism – completed Merriam-Webster’s list of seven high-ranking –ism words of 2015.

This year marked the first time Merriam-Webster has selected a suffix as its Word of the Year.

But Merriam-Webster was not the only dictionary to select a non-word as its  Word of the Year. The Oxford¹⁰ English Dictionary chose an emoji. Emojis are icons¹¹ that share a feeling, mood or thought with an image.

Oxford’s winning emoji was a face crying “tears of joy”. Oxford reported that the “tears of joy” face was the most-used emoji worldwide in 2015.

Words in This Story

suffix – n. a letter or a group of letters that is added to the end of a word to change its meaning or to form a different word

discrimination – n. the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people

exalt⁶ - v. to raise (someone or something) to a higher level

gender – n. the state of being male or female

1 suffix   

n.后缀；vt.添后缀

参考例句：

• We add the suffix "ly" to make the adjective "quick" into the adverb " quickly ".我们在形容词“ quick”后加“ly” 构成副词“quickly”。
• It described the meaning of suffix array and also how to built it.它描述的含义，后缀数组以及如何建立它。

2 socialist   

n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的

参考例句：

• China is a socialist country,and a developing country as well.中国是一个社会主义国家，也是一个发展中国家。
• His father was an ardent socialist.他父亲是一个热情的社会主义者。

3 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。

4 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

6 exalt   

v.赞扬，歌颂，晋升，提升

参考例句：

• She thanked the President to exalt her.她感谢总统提拔她。
• His work exalts all those virtues that we,as Americans,are taught to hold dear.他的作品颂扬了所有那些身为美国人应该珍视的美德。

7 exalts   

赞扬( exalt的第三人称单数 )； 歌颂； 提升； 提拔

参考例句：

• How the thought exalts me in my own eyes! 这种思想在我自己的眼睛里使我身价百倍啊！
• Fancy amuses; imagination expands and exalts us. 幻想使人乐，想象则使我们开阔和升华。

8 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

9 capitalism   

n.资本主义

参考例句：

• The essence of his argument is that capitalism cannot succeed.他的论点的核心是资本主义不能成功。
• Capitalism began to develop in Russia in the 19th century.十九世纪资本主义在俄国开始发展。

10 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

11 icons   

n.偶像( icon的名词复数 )；（计算机屏幕上表示命令、程序的）符号，图像

参考例句：

• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons. 用图标来区分重要的文本项。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Daemonic icons should only be employed persistently if they provide continuous, useful status information. 只有会连续地提供有用状态信息的情况下，后台应用程序才应该一直使用图标。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓