Statistics for Word of the Year

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General Stats
Answer Stats
Score Distribution
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General Stats

This quiz has been taken 1,179 times
(878 since last reset)
The average score is 11 of 23

Answer Stats

Hint	Answer	% Correct
2001: The date of the deadliest terrorist attack in human history.	9/11	92%
2020: The name of a bug that actually did bring society to its knees.	Covid	82%
2009: A social media message of 140 characters or less.	Tweet	77%
2002: George Bush insisted that Saddam had them. Turns out he didn't. Or did he? No, wait. He didn't. (Four words).	Weapons of Mass Destruction	74%
2010: A program specially-designed for use on a smartphone.	App	72%
2017: Two-word term describing disinformation spread across social media, or, when used by President Trump, describing any media coverage that did not portray him positively.	Fake News	71%
2015: A pronoun that had previously been "plural-only" before gaining acceptance as a singular pronoun in recognition of queer and nonbinary people.	They	67%
2014: Three-word rallying cry born of the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, among others, that became an influential social movement.	Black Lives Matter	65%
2003: The "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" team helped popularize this term for a fashionable but heterosexual male.	Metrosexual	63%
2019: Much-discussed grammatical parts of speech (see 2015 answer) by which someone identifies his or her preferred gender.	Pronouns	62%
1999: The name of a "bug" that was primed to bring society to its knees. Then nothing happened.	Y2K	62%
2004: The two-word term for a state whose electoral votes were up for grabs in the U.S. presidential election.	Purple State	60%
2008: Term for the government's financial aid that rescued large companies, especially financial companies. Except Lehman Brothers.	Bailout	44%
2000: It was "hanging" in Florida ballots, and left the presidential election hanging along with it.	Chad	43%
2021: Term for a violent uprising against a government, which over 2,000 people attempted by storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6.	Insurrection	38%
2012: An internet neologism used to identify a particular topic, and help determine which topics were "trending."	Hashtag	35%
2011: A common verb, used in this specific sense to describe the act of taking over a location as an act of defiance, or to demand change in policy.	Occupy	30%
2006: Past-tense participle describing something that has been demoted or devalued, named after an object that was itself "demoted" in this year.	Plutoed	27%
2007: Adjective describing a risky mortgage that became a much-discussed element of the 2008 global financial crisis.	Subprime	24%
2013: A common conjunction that internet mavens began using in a facetious and grammatically incorrect way, most commonly preceding the word "reasons." Must have been a slow news year.	Because	19%
2005: Stephen Colbert's coinage for the perception that a proposition is true despite a lack of evidence or logic supporting the proposition.	Truthiness	14%
2016: Two-word term for a disastrous and embarrassing situation, often used to describe the United States during this year, especially in election season.	Dumpster Fire	11%
2018: Three-word euphemism for detention camps on Texas's southern border where migrant children were held after being separated from their parents.	Tender Age Shelters	3%