What Was Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year?

How would you describe 2016? If you said "surreal," join the club.

According to Merriam-Webster, the word was looked up more frequently in 2016 than in years past. So much, in fact, that "surreal" is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year.

The company, based in Springfield, MA, tracks high-volume lookups in two categories - "perennial" searches, which are basically words that are looked up on a regular basis, and words that spike because of a news event, pop culture, politics or sports.

Merriam-Webster pinpointed three times in 2016 that "surreal" spiked in searches. In March, the word was used in coverage of the Brussels terror attacks. The word surfaced again in July in coverage of the coup attempt in Turkey and the terror attack in Nice. Finally, and perhaps most telling, Merriam-Webster saw the largest spike in lookups after the 2016 U.S. election.

The dictionary defines "surreal" as "marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream." Interestingly, it's relatively new to the English language and is derived from the surrealism movement of the early 1900s. The word itself dates back to the 1930s and joined the ranks of Merriam-Webster in 1967.

Here's a look at nine more notable words in 2016, according to Merriam-Webster:

• Revenant
• Icon
• In Omnia Paratus
• Bigly
• Deplorable
• Irregardless
• Assumpsit
• Faute de Mieux
• Feckless

Image via Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons