“Homer” Declared Word Of The Year By Cambridge Dictionary

Cambridge Dictionary declared “Homer” as its word of the year for 2022. For those who are not familiar, “homer” refers to a baseball home run.

Interestingly, the word of the year has a connection with the word-guessing game – Wordle.

In 2022, there was a sharp increase in the number of searches for the word on the Cambridge Dictionary website, with over 65,000 searches taking place in a single day.

The editors noted that many people were perplexed and irritated by the strange word. After losing the day’s round of Wordle, several players looked up the definition in the Cambridge Dictionary.

Josh Wardle, a software programmer from Brooklyn, created the word-guessing game Wordle for his Indian girlfriend Palak Shah. In six tries, a player must correctly guess a five-letter word. It became a worldwide sensation among those who enjoy solving puzzles. Later, the New York Times bought it.

When it was a solution in the online five-letter word puzzle during the first week of May, the word “homer” was looked up nearly 75,000 times.

Thanks to the five-letter word game, searches for various five-letter terms spiked in 2022, not only for “homer,” but for many other five-letter words as well. The list includes words like caulk, tacit, bayou, as well as humour.