Merriam-Webster has released its word of the year, and the crown goes to "culture." On its website, the dictionary explained how the word traditionally has an academic connotation [1] that identifies an idea, issue, or group, but that in 2014, "the use of the word culture to define ideas in this way has moved from the classroom syllabus to the conversation at large, appearing in headlines and analyses across a wide swath of topics." Whereas "culture" used to be a big search term just around back-to-school time, people were looking it up in large volumes throughout the whole year.

Runners-up for word of the year include "nostalgia," "insidious," and "legacy."

You may remember last month, the Oxford English Dictionary surprised everyone when it announced its word of the year [2], which was a whole lot trendier: vape.