Oxford Dictionaries names ‘selfie’ word of the year

Oxford Dictionaries has crowned “selfie” – a photograph that one has taken of oneself – their word of the year for 2013.

“Using the Oxford Dictionaries language research programme, which collects around 150 million words of current English in use each month, we can see a phenomenal upward trend in the use of selfie in 2013, and this helped to cement its selection as Word of the Year,” “Judy Pearsall, editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The full definition is “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.”

The plural is “selfies” and an example of its use is “occasional selfies are acceptable, but posting a new picture of yourself every day isn’t necessary,” the dictionary company said on its website.

The word is incredibly popular, Oxford noted, and its use has grown exponentially over the past 12 months. In fact, research showed its English language use has increased by 17,000 per cent since this time last year.

“Selfie” was first used in Australian online forum in 2002 and was added to OxfordDictionaries.com in August 2013.

Is this the first time you’ve heard the word? Or do you often post selfies? Let us know in the comments.

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