'Teabagger' Finalist For Oxford's 'Word Of The Year'

"Teabagger" is a finalist for the New Oxford American Dictionary's "word of the year."

Oxford gave a statement to Mediaite to clarify that they meant the political "teabagger," not anything salacious:

It should be noted that the term "teabagger" appears on Oxford's list because of the usage cited on that list, not because of any other meaning. Citations for the political sense were found in a number of legitimate sources throughout the year. As a reference to members of the currently active Tea Party, the word has been used in speech and print by both liberals and conservatives. In this context, the term "teabagger" is a reasonably conceived informal name for an affiliate of the Tea Party, and as a word in the news, it earned a mention for the year 2009.

Having deliberated carefully over the word-usage evidence, Oxford's lexicographers are confident in their judgment that "teabagger" the political term stands distinctly apart from "teabagger" the vulgar term.

Keith Olbermann took credit for popularizing the word on MSNBC Tuesday night. But the word "teabagger" actually started to spread after the Washington Independent's David Weigel photographed a protester at the first D.C. Tea Party Protest in February holding the sign, "Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You!!"

"When I took that photograph at the first Tea Party in D.C., I thought it was funny," Weigel said. "I did not think it would play any role in defining a political movement. And while I personally don't use that word to refer to anti-Obama protesters, I am in very proud possession of a 'Proud to Be A Teabagger' button, so I guess the term has gone through the Lenny Bruce, adopt-it-against-our-enemies wringer."

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Comments

[formlessness]

05:57 PM on 11/19/2009

Teabagger (n) tee-bag-er
one who has a niave and jaded view of fiscal policy and government. Should be confused with the term of the same name meaning the placing of one's testicals on anothers forehead for sexual arrousal. The teabaggers themselves have wrongly associated the term with the Boston Tea Party, whose participants were not braindead hicks or ignorant bigots like the Teabaggers of today. The BTP participants were not protesting taxes, they were protesting paying taxes without recieving fair representation for the money they paid in taxes.

[JerryFLA]

04:50 PM on 02/24/2010

Tea-bag-ee A liberal who is ridiculed by a teabagger for willingly paying taxes to support those who borrow more than they can afford, or business that invest in highly speculative dealings.

[ThinkCreeps]

03:52 PM on 11/19/2009

`Teabagger' is going to have to pull out all the stops to beat `hiking the appalachian trail' as the new expression of the year.

[greymom]

03:43 PM on 11/19/2009

I wonder if those hats were designed to keep the flies away since they are wading in so much BS at these rallies.

[Cryostatic]

11:06 AM on 11/19/2009

If a rainbow can be changed into a symbol for homosexuality, then surely testes in the face can be changed into a symbol for the fundamentalist Christian right.

[lmnop13]

12:58 PM on 11/19/2009

Works for me.

[goodog]

03:59 PM on 11/19/2009

teaBirthing goons toting Uzis.

[JustFrogs]

02:14 AM on 11/19/2009

Just one snide comment and I'll go away - just because it's fun and these 'te@baggers' deserve to be ridiculed for allowing themselves to be associated with a word the rest of us know is a reference to a vulgar sexu@al act: so, in that vien, maybe the te@bagger in the pic should close her mouth, ya never know what may be near.

[mcmutter]

09:24 AM on 11/19/2009

thats a dude...one of the teabagger leaders

[proudloudlib]

01:33 PM on 11/19/2009

I was just about to ask about that. There is truly no way to tell by just looking at the picture. And if they didn't want to be called "teabaggers", maybe they shouldn't have worn teabags on their hats, huh?

[Ifticar2]

12:57 AM on 11/19/2009

Any time a liberal uses the word, he or she knows that they are using an obscene sexual reference. They use the term and giggle to themselves like a third grader who just learned how mommy and daddy made her.

[xypher0725]

02:15 AM on 11/19/2009

which is why it's hilarious that the wingers use the term "teabaggers" as a badge of honor.

[JustFrogs]

02:16 AM on 11/19/2009

Yep - and it's fun. If ya can't laugh at these idjuts you will drive yourself insane. Get a sense of humor bud.

[zezel]

12:06 AM on 11/19/2009

Yay, name-calling rocks!

[MauricioC]

10:23 PM on 11/18/2009

Teabagger made it, eh? Teabagger the noun or teabagger the verb?

[proudloudlib]

01:36 PM on 11/19/2009

Teabagger is a noun. Teabag is both a verb and a noun. #Ican'tbelieveIwenttocollegeforthisstuff

Oops. Twitter is ruining me. I want to add #hashtags to everything now.

[mcmutter]

10:18 PM on 11/18/2009

Teabaggers assume your positions.

[greymom]

03:46 PM on 11/19/2009

Now I can't get that image out of my head. Can you imagine them at these rallies just doing that?

[nogimmicks]

08:24 PM on 11/18/2009

I wonder what the list of synonyms will be for that entry? (any suggestions?)

[xypher0725]

02:16 AM on 11/19/2009

I doubt any would get past the moderators.

[eh politics]

07:54 PM on 11/18/2009

"'teabagging' was a phrase that referred to dangling one's testicles in someone else's face. And they managed to turn it into something gross and ridiculous." - Bill Maher

[Ifticar2]

12:58 AM on 11/19/2009

They being Olbermann, Rachael and Anderson Cooper.

[xypher0725]

02:16 AM on 11/19/2009

nice try...but FAIL

[proudloudlib]

01:37 PM on 11/19/2009

"They" being the silly people that affixed teabags to their garments and went out in public. Geez, they asked for it.

[SimJack]

06:35 PM on 11/18/2009

What, the synonym 'Nadgargler' didn't get it? Darn!

[SweetJebus]

06:29 PM on 11/18/2009

Oxford should learn to get with the times, which Urbandictionary.com has superceded:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagger
They are the current, definitive source for this type of information -- not Oxford. Their reign is OVER!!

[hypnus]

06:15 PM on 11/18/2009

Noun 1. A person with an intelligent quotient of 70 or below frequently dressed in a ridiculous costume, advocating support of radical conservative ideals which they don’t completely understand and are often antithetical to the principles of a democratic society. See also, A$$ CLOWN.

[Gunfighter]

12:28 PM on 11/19/2009

Well said.

[GreedyOleParty]

06:15 PM on 11/18/2009

Hope they include the original definition of the word!!!