Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year 2022 revealed (Hint: It is inspired by Wordle)

This term provoked frustration and anger from non-American users as they weren’t aware of the term and lost their chance of securing a win by guessing the word within the game’s six-guess limit.

But, what does it mean? According to the dictionary, it a short for ‘home run’ which is a point scored in baseball when you hit the ball, usually out of the playing field, and are able to run around all the bases at one time to the starting base. For many others, this term stands for a Simpsons character or an ancient Greek poet.

“This informal American English term for a home run in baseball left players of Wordle who were not familiar with the word feeling confused and frustrated,” Cambridge Dictionary noted, adding that “tens of thousands of these Wordle players took to the Cambridge Dictionary to understand the meaning of the word homer.”

It further revealed that homer was not the only five-letter word that saw a spike in searches in 2022. Due to the ‘Wordle effect’, words such humor (American spelling of humour), caulk, tacit and bayou also saw a huge increase in searches.

“The differences between British and American English are always of interest, not just to learners of English but to English speakers globally, and word games have always been a popular combination of education and entertainment. We’ve seen those two areas come together in the public conversations about Wordle, and the way five-letter words have taken over the search data on the Cambridge Dictionary website this year,” the dictionary said.

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