2013 Big Words On Campus

SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Aug. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Merriam-Webster Inc., America's leading dictionary publisher, predicts this year's "Big Words on Campus," based on historic lookup data at Merriam-Webster.com. 

As students head back to class each fall they encounter words that suddenly feel important—abstract academic terms, buzzwords around campus, concrete warnings about academic honesty—and turn to the dictionary.

The biggest spike in lookups every September is culture.  "Culture is a term used in course names, textbook titles, and syllabus headings. It is perhaps the word that best encapsulates what is meant today by higher education: a single word that can encompass what we study and why we study it," says Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's Editor at Large.  "A generation ago many courses of study were oriented toward analysis of "the individual and society," but today everything from classical Greek to sports nutrition to manga seems to reflect 'culture.'"

Diversity is another word that rises to the top of dictionary lookups.   Colleges and universities pride themselves on the quality, claiming that diversity enriches the educational experience and prepares students for the future.  Student programs, essays, and college mission statements are devoted to diversity, and the term is talked about heavily during freshman orientation.    

Plagiarize is an inescapable word on campus, and dictionary lookups spike every September.  Meaning "to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own," the forbidden act is warned against during orientation, in syllabi, and by professors on the first day of class.

Lookups for specific terms used in course descriptions—such as pedagogy, rhetoric, aesthetic, and heuristic—see an increase in traffic as the school year begins.  And once homework is assigned, and students begin analyzing texts and literature, they turn to the dictionary to fully understand the meaning of abstract terms like irony, metaphor, and allegory. 

For the complete list of Merriam-Webster's Big Words on Campus, including definitions, please visit http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-big-words-on-campus/culture.html.

Merriam-Webster Inc.  For more than 150 years, in print and now in digital media, Merriam-Webster has been America's leading and most-trusted provider of language information. Each month, our Web sites and apps offer guidance to tens of millions of visitors. In print, our publications include Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary (among the best-selling books in American history) and newly published dictionaries for English-language learners. All Merriam-Webster products and services are backed by the largest team of professional dictionary editors and writers in America, and one of the largest in the world.

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SOURCE Merriam-Webster Inc.