Dictionary.com named “complicit” the Word of the Year. And, well, with Donald Trump, the sexual harassment scandal, and more it feels right, doesn’t it?
Dictionary.com has a message for us. They just came out with their Word of the Year and it’s complicit. Has anything else ever made you say, “Yeah, that sounds about right” so much? Clearly, Dictionary.com wants us to take a cold, hard look at ourselves.
According to Dictionary.com, complicit means “choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable act, especially with others; having complicity,” which perfectly sums up 2017.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, look-ups for the word “complicit” went up nearly 300 percent this year because it was brought up in nearly every conversation on current events including politics, the Russia scandal, climate change, sexual harassment, and more.
The word also had three big spikes on Dictionary.com this year. The first was on March 12 when Saturday Night Live aired their hilarous sketch with Scarlett Johansson playing Ivanka Trump in a perfume parody. Trump walked around a lavish party with everyone turning to watch her.
“She’s beautiful, she’s powerful, she’s complicit,” a voiceover said. “She’s a woman who knows what she wants … and knows what she’s doing.” The tagline added it’s “The fragrance for the woman who could stop all this, but won’t.”
Trump is really what brought the word into the national conversation this year. For some reason, everyone had such high hopes that she and Jared Kushner would be the reasonable, moderating voices in the White House. Thad doesn’t seem to have been the case.
Trump caused another spike for complicit on April 5 when she somehow denied she knew what the word meant during an interview with Gayle King on CBS This Morning.
“If being complicit is wanting to be a force for good and to make a positive impact then I’m complicit,” Trump said.
No, that’s not what complicit means and you know that. You’re a very well educated person. You graduated summa cum laude from Wharton. If you really need to look it up, though, Dictionary.com has a definition for you.
She added:
"I don’t know that the critics who may say that of me if they found themselves in this very unique and unprecedented situation that I am now in would do any differently than I’m doing. So I hope to make a positive impact. I don’t know what it means to be complicit but I hope time will prove that I have done a good job and, much more importantly, that my father’s administration is the success that I know it will be."
The third spike for the word happened on Oct. 24, when Jeff Flake famously announced that he wasn’t seeking re-election for the Senate. “I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so Mr. President, I will not be complicit,” he said in his shocking speech. Flake criticized President Trump and urged his fellow Republicans to do something instead of being complicit in his actions.
While those were the three big spikes for the word this year, complicit has come up again and again in our country, which is just sad. It’s come up when talking about gun control, the opioid crisis, and more.
Most recently, though, it’s come up in the widespread sexual harassment and assault scandal that’s spread across nearly every industry in this country. Many have said people’s complicity in men like Harvey Weinstein’s actions led to the years of silence and fear and allowed these men’s actions to continue.
Other popular words this year included: intersex, shrinkage, tarnation, horologist, and totality.
Next: John Oliver looks at the tactics of the Trump presidency
But 2017 really was the year of complicit. It’s sad but true. And it’s just right. Hopefully 2018 will see the end of complicity.