Merriam-Webster declares ‘they’ its 2019 word of the year

A common but increasingly mighty and very busy little word, “they,” has an accolade all its own.

Merriam-Webster declared the personal pronoun their word of the year based on a 313% increase in look-ups on the company’s search site, Merriam-Webster.com, this year when compared with 2018.

“I have to say it’s surprising,” said Peter Sokolowski, a lexicographer and Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, ahead of Tuesday’s announcement. “So many people were talking about this word.”

Sokolowski’s team monitors spikes in searches and “they” got an early start in January with the rise of model Oslo Grace on top fashion runways. The Californian identifies as transgender nonbinary, walking in both men’s and women’s shows around the world. Another look-up spike occurred in April, when U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, got emotional while talking of her gender-nonconforming child during a House committee hearing. Merriam-Webster recently added a new definition to its dictionary to reflect use of “they” as relating to a person with a nonbinary gender identity. In October, the American Psychological Association endorsed “they” as a singular third-person pronoun in its latest guide for scholarly writing.

Merriam-Webster runners-up to word of the year include “quid pro quo,” “impeach” and “crawdad,” the latter a word in the title of Delia Evans’ best-selling novel, “Where the Crawdads Sing.” The Top 10 also included “egregious,” “clemency ”and “the, ”which got a look-up spike when Ohio State University attempted to patent the word to protect its turf. It failed.