"Exposure" Named 2014 Word of the Year by Dictionary.com

In 2014, the Ebola virus, police brutality and domestic violence, as well as hackers stealing the personal information of millions dominated the news. Vulnerability and visibility were at the core of the year's most notable headlines.

Encapsulating those themes, Dictionary.com's Word of the Year for 2014 is exposure.

The word exposure entered English in the early 1600s to refer to a state of being without shelter or protection. Over the course of the next few centuries, it picked up numerous meanings, four of which were particularly germane to 2014. In the spring, one of these took on grave importance: Exposure: the condition of being exposed to danger or harm.

Exposure took on grave importance as an Ebola outbreak ravaged West Africa and health workers in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria struggled to contain the deadly virus.

Ebola gained widespread exposure or publicity within the U.S. after two events brought the conversation home: in August, the first American was treated for Ebola on U.S. soil; and in October, Thomas Eric Duncan died from the disease in Dallas, igniting a wave of attention in the news.

"Exposure has several meanings, and this year those meanings took on new relevance," said Michele Turner, CEO of Dictionary.com.
"From exposure to the Ebola virus, to exposure of personal information in online hacks, to the exposure of reprehensible behavior, we've seen exposure in all its meanings trend throughout 2014."

Among the other words that were discussed for Word of the Year were "borders" and "disrupt," and buzzwords such as "wearables" and "bae."

Dictionary.com Dictionary.com, an IAC company, is the world's leading, definitive online and mobile resource for everything word related. It provide over 70 million global monthly users with reliable access to millions of definitions, synonyms, audio pronunciations.