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Apple fans were used as an example in Merriam-Webster's defnintion of "sheeple." PDPics/Pixabay

The Merriam-Webster has selected “they” as the 2019 word of the year, referring to the neutral pronoun favored by those who identify as gender non-binary.

The company explained that the honor was determined by data pertaining to the word’s increased exposure over the course of the year. According to the data, search results for “they” as a pronoun increased by 313%. In September, the non-binary pronoun definition of the word was added to the company’s American English dictionary alongside hundreds of other news words and phrases. The publisher claimed to have found instances of “they” as a non-binary pronoun as far back as 1950.

Some of the other contenders for the word or phrase of the year included “quid pro quo,” “impeach,” “crawdad,” and “egregious.” Past winners have included “justice” in 2018, “feminism” in 2017, and “surreal” in 2016.

Several key cultural moments were cited by Merriam-Webster in explaining the pronoun’s explosion in relevancy this year. In September, popular singer-songwriting Sam Smith publicly announced that they identified as non-binary. In January, Paris Fashion Week featured a non-binary model, Oslo Grace. Also, in April congresswoman Pramila Jayapal discussed her child who was gender non-conforming.

“Pronouns are among the language's most commonly used words, and like other common words (think go, do, and have) they tend to be mostly ignored by dictionary users,” Merriam-Webster senior editor Emily Brewster explained. “But over the past year or so, as people have increasingly encountered the nonbinary use, we've seen searches for ‘they’ grow dramatically.”

Other dictionary publishers have chosen words of phrases for 2019 that revolve around climate change discussions. Collins Dictionary went with “climate strike,” while Oxford chose “climate emergency.”