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Ten Words of the Year for 2005
The most frequently looked-up word in the online version of the American dictionary, Merriam-Webster's in 2005, was integrity, which is defined as "firm adherence to a code, especially moral or artistic values: incorruptibility".
Below is a list of the top ten most looked-up words for this year:
| 1. | integrity |
| 2. | refugee |
| 3. | contempt |
| 4. | filibuster |
| 5. | insipid |
| 6. | tsunami |
| 7. | pandemic |
| 8. | conclave |
| 9. | levee |
| 10. | inept |
Source: Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year 2004
Not surprisingly, a number of these words can be directly linked to stories in the news over the past year: 'refugee' to refer to those people displaced by Hurricane Katrina; the 'tsunami' in South-East Asia; the 'levees' in flooded New Orleans; and the 'conclave' responsible for selecting the new Pope. When Simon Cowell of American Idol called a singer's performance 'pleasant, safe, and a little insipid', this put the word 'insipid' in the top 50 for two months.
What is interesting is that none of the words in the top ten were in the previous top ten in 2004, when the number one word was blog.
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