Dictionary.com has declared xenophobia its word of the year.
According to the site, interest in the overarching themes tied to this term were evident on June 24, 2016, which marked the largest spike in lookups for xenophobia this year. This was the day after the UK voted to leave the European Union as the result of a much-debated referendum, also known as Brexit.
Another search trend that was influenced by this vote was user interest in the term hate crime, which soared in the month of July as newspapers covered an increase in crimes motivated by prejudice in post-Brexit UK.
Days after the Brexit vote, the second largest surge in searches for the term xenophobia came in relation to the 2016 US presidential race. On June 29, President Obama gave a speech in which he insisted that Donald Trump’s political rhetoric was not an example of populism, but of “nativism or xenophobia.”
Unsurprisingly, the largest spike in lookups for the term populism in 2016 occurred on June 30 as a result of Obama’s speech. The word has also been used frequently following a spike in reported crimes against minority groups in the weeks following Trump’s election.
The word xenophobia, which entered the English language in the late 1800s, finds its roots in two Greek words: xénos meaning “stranger, guest,” and phóbos meaning “fear, panic.” It is defined as “fear or dislike of the customs, dress, etc., of people who are culturally different from oneself.”
“Xenophobia and other words tied to global news and political rhetoric reflected the worldwide interest in the unfortunate rise of fear of otherness in 2016, making it the clear choice for Word of the Year,” said Liz McMillan, CEO of Dictionary.com. “While we can never know the exact reasons why xenophobia trended in our lookups this year, this reflects a desire in our users to understand the significant discourse surrounding global events.”