March 2006

February's TOP TWENTY

Six of the ten Words of the Year for 2005 continued to make the Top Twenty list in February. Among these, filibuster slipped from No. 2 to No. 10 position, while integrity moved back to No. 3 — once again the most looked-up word in the dictionary other than effect and affect. Also moving a few notches were insipid, inept, and contempt, while pandemic held steady at No. 9.

See February's full list and find out what comic strip had a notable effect on the list last month.

  1. effect
  2. affect
  3. integrity
  4. insipid
  5. love
  6. fungible
  7. ubiquitous
  8. metaphor
  9. pandemic
  10. filibuster
 
  1. irony
  2. inept
  3. contempt
  4. empathy
  5. dichotomy
  6. ambiguous
  7. ensure
  8. gregarious
  9. paradigm
  10. agnostic

The guest star this month is fungible. Its prominent appearance in the February 19th Dilbert cartoon strip sent people scurrying to the dictionary, lest they too find themselves making the statement, "Hey, everyone, I don't understand what fungible means." For more on fungible, see this month's Word Profile.

Down in No. 19 and 20 slots, list-stalwart paradigm and occasional entrant agnostic reappeared this month. Hypothesis, partisan, and pragmatic slipped off the list, but it's a safe bet that we will be seeing all of them, especially partisan, back on the list in future months.


Main | Words in the News: sectarian »