Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year for 2013, “selfie,” definitely captures a snapshot of our social-media-obsessed moment.
Oxford Dictionaries defines selfie thusly:
(n.) a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.
It’s not a new word. Reuters traces its origins to a 2002 posting in an Australian Web forum. But, Judy Pearsall, editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries, says that doesn’t matter.
“The Word of the Year need not have been coined within the past 12 months and it does not have to be a word that will stick around for a good length of time,” Pearsall says.