Feminism noun: the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.

The word feminism sparks different feelings and emotions for all of us. Still, even in 2017, it’s certainly a hot topic. The Merriam-Webster Twitter account actually reported that “‘Feminism’ was looked up 70% more in 2017 than in 2016. And it was looked up a ton in 2016.”

Because of this, it was an easy choice to make it the Merriam-Webster’s word of the year.

“No one word can encapsulate all the news, events, or stories of a given year. But when we look back at the past twelve months and combine an analysis of words that have been looked up much more frequently than during the previous year along with instances of intense spikes of interest because of news events, we see that one word stands out in both categories,” stated the Editor at Large for Merriam-Webster, Peter Sokolowski.

Major movements like #MeToo have greatly contributed to the word’s rise in popularity and it’s likely that it will only increase in the upcoming months.

Source: Rolling Stones