'Authentic' is the word of 2023 by Merriam-Webster

What should be your New Year’s Resolution for 2024?

According to America’s oldest dictionary, it should be all about being true to yourself.

Merriam-Webster has zeroed in on the word of the year, and it’s none other than ‘authentic’!


In an interview with the BBC, the publishers at Merriam-Webster revealed that this was a result of an increasing search for the word on Google. They theorised that several factors such as the dawn of AI, the rise of social media dependency, and parasocial relationships, led to the word trending a lot on Google searches.

So many people searched for this word because it meant “ not false or imitation,” and “being true to one’s own personality, spirit and character.”

How AI & Deepfake Made The Word Desperate For Authenticism

The publisher explained that the AI boom had made many people struggle to confuse between what’s real and what’s phoney. This has led to a renewed interest in cultivating authenticity.

Meet The Runner-Ups

While authentic’ has been crowned the word of the year by Merriam-Webster, other top words that were in the running for the title included words such as ‘deepfake’ and ‘rizz’.

Deepfake refers to a technology that digitally alters images and videos. Deepfake trended as several personalities such as Elon Musk talked about staying safe from deepfake videos on X. Musk also often emphasised on the importance of being authentic on social media, which may have contributed to the newfound popularity of the word.

'Rizz', a slang word denoting charisma, as well as the word 'indict' also experienced a high volume of Google searches. The latter experienced a popularity boost after ex American President Donald Trump was indicted or accused of several crimes including election fraud.

In 2022, 'gaslighting' was crowned as word of the year. The word meant emotionally manipulating someone so as to befuddle them.