Dictionaries have made their choices for 2023 English “word of the year”: authentic, hallucinate and rizz.
Authentic is the choice of Merriam-Webster as deepfake video and AI-generated writing and pictures have created a sort of “crisis in authenticity.” A Merriam-Webster editor told The Associated Press that “when we question authenticity, we value it even more.”
Dictionary.com and the Cambridge Dictionary had similar reasons for designating hallucinate as 2023’s big word. AI chatbots have been known to “hallucinate” – i.e., find “fact” where it isn’t. (For example, an early version of ChatGPT stated that San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge was transported across Egypt.)
“If this is the first time you’re learning about it, be prepared to start encountering the word – and what it refers to – with increasing frequency,” Dictionary.com declared. “Like AI itself, the word hallucinate is on an upward trajectory.”
The outlier choice here is rizz, short for charisma. Oxford has noticed a definite uptick in use of the slang term meaning charm, which can be used as a noun or a verb – e.g., “Rizz her up and maybe you’ll get her number.”
This is not the first time Oxford has chosen something informal for its word of the year. The venerable English institution’s choice for 2022 was “goblin mode,” which Oxford said means “unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.” Like rizz, goblin mode emerged from social media.
Rizz has, as the kids say, “gone viral” on TikTok and other youth-skewed social media platforms. I wouldn’t recommend using it or goblin mode in writing for general audiences, however. It likely won’t feel authentic. Older readers might think you’re hallucinating.