'Unfriend' Picked Oxford Dictionary's 'Word Of The Year'

NEW YORK — What word sums up 2009? How about unfriend?

That's the New Oxford American Dictionary's 2009 Word of the Year. It means to remove someone as a friend on a social networking Web site such as Facebook.

Each year Oxford University Press tracks how the English language is changing and chooses a word that best reflects the mood of the year.

Oxford lexicographer Christine Lindberg says unfriend has "real lex appeal."

Finalists for 2009 also included netbook, which is a small laptop, and sexting, which is sending sexually explicit texts and pictures by cell phone.

Comments

[LateDave]

02:28 PM on 11/19/2009

I prefer "umfriend," like when she says, "This is Bob, he's my umfriend." Nice connotations, approximately friend with benefits/privileges, don't want to try to explain to mom.

"Unfriend" goes back to Kipling, circa 1902, but as a noun, not a verb. This is the usage isaidit presents. See _Kim_, past the middle somewhere, in the scene by the railway siding, IIRC, used by Mahbub Ali: "They are unfriends of mine."

[berkeleygirl1962]

02:59 PM on 11/16/2009

Hmmmm...I thought the verb was "defriend" (or, more properly, "de-friend"), not "unfriend."

[Bonny9]

11:49 PM on 11/17/2009

yep de friend. maybe unfriend is a friend you drink 7 up with. you know the uncola

[isaidit]

10:50 AM on 11/19/2009

Yep. In which case, you can defriend an unfriend if s/he never sprung for an unround.