Surprising Word of the Year revealed
The Word of the Year has been revealed and it may not be what you expect.
There were 19 words in the running including “spicy cough” even though that’s two words, “skin hunger”, another two word submission, and “Barbiecore”.
However, the winner is the word “Teal” as recognised by the Macquarie Dictionary for the year 2022.
The runner up to Word of the Year was “truth-telling” which the committee explained was important to Australian culture and politics.
“Teal embodies the year that's been, and truth-telling is the year that's to come – let's hope that's the case,” the committee said.
“They're both really important concepts, central to Australian culture and politics.
"It's hard to go past teal as an emblem of Australia's political landscape in 2022. It's not a brand-new word, but it is a brand-new sense that no-one saw coming."
According to Macquarie Dictionary, teal is defined as “a political candidate who holds generally ideologically moderate views, but who supports strong action regarding environmental and climate action policies, and the prioritising of integrity in politics (so called as many of the candidates use the colour teal in their electoral material)".
Teal made its way into the limelight during the federal election when Climate100-backed candidates including Zali Steggall, Kylea Tink and Allegra Spender used the colour teal, a mix of green and Liberal blue as part of their campaigns.
Image: Macquarie Dictionary