Words that defined 2023

A Lounge roundup of standout words and phrases that anchored significant moments this year-and could very well seep into our everyday conversations going forward 

- Shrabonti Bagchi & Vangmayi Parakala

The word “rizz” generated all the buzz a few weeks ago, when Oxford University Press declared it their Word of the Year for 2023. Their website says that the winning candidate is usually one that “is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of that particular year and to have lasting potential as a word of cultural significance”. Short for charisma, rizz started off indicating a certain appeal that could help attract romantic partners and later evolved to mean a whole lot more since—as the Oxford Languages site says, 2023 has been the year of much PR, and having rizz is the only way to command attention. Such evolution is the beauty of language, and Lounge’s list of words for 2023 reflects just this. At first glance, these words may seem like they were part of an evanescent moment; but repeating any of them does not lead to any semantic saturation—it only reinforces that new coinages are an important component of cultural flashpoints; and a great way to take stock of a year gone by.

DEEPFAKE

Warning bells about the evils of Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially with regard to the consequences of the deepfake porn industry, have been rung aloud for a few years now. The likes of Natalie Portman and Emma Watson have been targeted before, but the tech really hit the fan in India in 2023,with actors Rashmika Mandanna and Alia Bhatt bearing the brunt of objectionable deepfakes of themselves going viral. In a report titled A Revealing Picture earlier this month, social media analytics company Graphika, said “AI undressing” has seen an uptick in use. Hey Siri, play John Mayer’s Stop This Train from the still-innocent aughts.

GLIMMER