But not just any ism. The top isms to earn high traffic spikes² and big bumps in lookups on the dictionary company's website in 2015 over the year before are socialism, fascism, racism³, feminism, communism, capitalism⁴ and terrorism.

 

"We had a lot on our minds this year," mused⁵ Peter Sokolowski, the Springfield, Massachusetts-based company's editor at large, in a recent interview. "It's a serious year. These are words of ideas and practices. We're educating ourselves."

 

Pinpointing⁶ reasons why words go on the run at Merriam-Webster is an educated guess. The dictionary company tracks corresponding news events to link lookups to real life. And its researchers also crunch⁷ data in a way that filters out common words frequently looked up year after year after year when making their top annual choices.

 

The isms often collide, driving each other in popularity, Sokolowski said.

 

"Fascism we more closely associate as the response to various acts of terrorism. After the attacks in Paris and the attacks in Colorado Springs and in San Bernardino, and because of Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslims, we then see the word fascism spike," he said.

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