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Dictionary.com Picks ‘Complicit’ as 2017 Word of the Year

Online searches using the word spiked three times during the year.

Dictionary.com announced Monday that it has chosen “complicit” as its 2017 word of the year. Online searches using the word spiked three times over the year. The first was in March when Saturday Night Live aired a spoof ad for a “Complicit” perfume featuring Scarlett Johansson as Ivanka Trump. The word spiked again in April when Trump herself defended herself against the sketch and told CBS, “I don’t know what it means to be complicit.” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) later used the word in his October retirement speech on the Senate floor, saying, “I will not be complicit or silent” about the Trump administration and the state of the Republican Party. Dictionary.com, which is also owned by The Daily Beast’s parent company IAC, chose “xenophobia” as its 2016 word of the year.