What’s that? You haven’t set your word of the year yet?
I understand. It’s a lot of pressure to boil 365 days down to a single word—perhaps the Pinterest gods could consider a paragraph of the year for 2024? Or a novella?—and we’ve used all the classics already. Gratitude. Persistence. Growth. There are only so many abstract nouns to go around in the English language, after all.
Don’t despair. If you’ve flipped through the entire dictionary, scrolled all of Instagram, and perused every wild-eyed wooden sign in your local Hobby Lobby, and STILL haven’t found an arbitrary word around which to organize the next twelve months of your life, I’m here to help.
Please accept these four fresh suggestions for your 2023 Word of the Year, free of charge until you make back your initial investment.
After that I expect twenty percent of whatever you achieve.
Word of the Year: Consumption
It gets a bad rap because of its problematic cousin, consumerism, but consumption doesn’t have to equal a robust collection of Kate Spade bags or a Constanza-sized wallet full of store credit cards.
It can simply mean you plan to regularly consume things in 2023. Healthy foods, for example. Or the collected works of an unconventionally attractive British actor. Or hundreds of cords of salvaged firewood, depending on how the apocalypse shapes up.
As a bonus, consumption can also flexibly remind you that you’re not dying of tuberculosis in the 19th century, which is basically the same as choosing gratitude.
Word of the Year: Goat, lower case
If we’re striking the acronym GOAT from the lexicon, you could take the opportunity to reclaim lowercase goat as your 2023 Word of the Year. Printed on your vision board, it could prompt you to ascend great heights, like stacks of hay bales. Or to try new foods, like aluminum cans. Or to start doing yoga, because isn’t goat yoga still a thing?
Word of the Year: Vengeance
If you adopt vengeance as your word of the year, you can focus your 2023 energy on reclaiming whatever is rightfully yours. Tired of not ascending to that throne? Sick of not controlling that multinational money laundering operation? Need to get your hands on a certain Jedi knight who cut off all four of your limbs and left you to die in a pit of lava? This is your year! And although I’m fuzzy on the details, if you choose vengeance as your north star, I’m 99 percent sure Liam Neeson will show up somewhere in the next twelve months, for better or worse.
Word of the Year: Literally
Newness has energy. So for the new year, why not choose a word with new meaning? How about a meaning so novel that the word no longer has any meaning at all? Literally is a blank slate, an empty shell of a word utterly eviscerated by casual overuse. A hollow, dead-eyed intensifier onto which you can ascribe LITERALLY any meaning you like! Yes, it’s an abomination, but literally can be your word of the year if 2022 left you a ghost of your former self, and you’re ready to turn over a new, vapid leaf.
I haven’t settled on my own word of the year yet, but I’m leaning toward noncommittal. I might let you know how it goes. Choose wisely and happy new year!
