Word of the Year 2023

Merriam-Webster Dictionary has named "authentic" as its 2023 Word of the Year. Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year award is an annual recognition given to a word that has dominated searches and lookup volume on the dictionary's website. With the rise of artificial intelligence and its impact on deepfake videos, actors' and writers' contracts, academic honesty, art, music, and a vast number of other topics, separating fact from fiction is becoming increasingly harder.

"A high-volume lookup most years, authentic saw a substantial increase in 2023, driven by stories and conversations about AI [artificial intelligence], celebrity culture, identity, and social media," the dictionary's announcement said on Monday, adding, "Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define and subject to debate - two reasons it sends many people to the dictionary."

"We see in 2023 a kind of crisis of authenticity," said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor-in-chief, to the Associated Press. "What we realize is that when we question authenticity, we value it even more." As NPR's Emily Olsen notes, "Celebrities like Prince Harry and Britney Spears sought to tell their own stories. A certain New York congressman got a taste of comeuppance after years of lying. The summer's hottest blockbuster was about a world of pristine plastic colliding with flesh-and-blood reality."

Elon Musk, the owner of X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter), is even calling for authenticity. He tried to promote X as social media's most authentic platform, while also muddying the waters by "[getting] rid of the trademark blue check sign of authenticity - now only available at a price," noted CNN's Lianne Kolirin.

So how does the dictionary define "authentic" ? It has several definitions for the word, including "not false or an imitation," "true to one's own personality, spirit, or character," and "made or done the same way as an original." Most conversations around authenticity tend to focus on whether you're acting like a relatable, normal person or putting on a front for the people around you. It is an important distinction: coming across as phony can be alienating, while conveying authenticity can help you amass popularity and inspire others, surveys show. But authenticity can be a double-edged sword. Trying too hard to be natural or relatable often seems fake, Merriam-Webster's announcement noted: "Ironically, with 'authentic content creators' now recognized as the gold standard for building trust, 'authenticity' has become a performance."

In addition to naming "authentic" as the Word of the Year for 2023, Merriam-Webster noted several other words also jumped in search popularity. Some of those include "rizz," "deepfake," and "dystopian."

Previous Word of the Year winners include "pandemic" (2020), "vaccine" (2021), and "gaslighting" (2022).