‘Unfriend’ means to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a site such as Facebook. Voted the word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary, it shares the honours in the UK with the alternative ‘defriend’.
‘Tweetups’, which refers to the meetings or other gatherings organised though the posts in the social networking service Twitter, was also one of the most popular words of the year, The Telegraph reported, citing a study by Oxford University Press.
“It has been another rich year,” said Susie Dent, the lexicographic specialist from the TV show Countdown, who led the team that compiled over 2 billion words to prepare the list.
‘Jeggings’, another top scorer in usage terms, comes from the traditional word-marrying school of new terms – mixing jeans and leggings to describe the new clothing style.
Other words in the list come from the economy, fashion and politics. They include the ‘great recession’ and ‘Zombie Bank’, a financial institution whose liabilities are greater than its assets but which continues to operate because of government support. In the corporate world, ‘minute mentoring’ emerged among aspiring professionals, and ‘freemiums’ and ‘paywalls’ in businesses.
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