'Justice' is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for its role in major news events
Users looked up the word 74 percent more often than in 2017, Merriam-Webster Editor said
(Reuters) - Justice is what most people sought on Merriam-Webster, among the world s most popular dictionaries, as the U.S. publisher on Monday (December 17) named that principle of being fair as the Word of the Year for 2018.
Users looked up the word 74 percent more often than in 2017, Merriam-Webster Editor-at-Large Peter Sokolowski said for the website, which claims to be "America s most trusted dictionary."
The surge was prompted by specific uses of the word such as "obstruction of justice," after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted in August that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop Special Counsel Robert Mueller s investigation into Russia s role in the 2016 election, the company said.
"Looking at the year through the prism of vocabulary by analyzing our Look-Up data reminds us that words matter ," Sokolowski said in a company video released Monday.
