In 2011, the word was tergiversate, which meant, to change your opinions repeatedly

Last updated: October 28, 2026 | 11:39

Sigh, a two-minute silence for times when the dictionary used to pick words to explain the news to us. Now it picks words to explain us to the news. Pixabay

In 2011, Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year was a five-syllable Latin word most people needed to look up. In 2026, it’s a gamer suffix with a spare X. That’s the whole story of the last fifteen years of English, and honestly, of us.

(Quick math before the pedants arrive: Dictionary.com started naming a Word of the Year in 2010, with change*. Tergiversate was its second pick. So this story covers all 17 winners, from 2010 to 2026. We just start the punchline in 2011, because* change is a terrible joke setup.)

Tergiversate means to keep changing your opinion on something. Dictionary.com picked it on purpose: An obscure word to roast a year of political flip-flopping.…