Each year researchers behind the Oxford Dictionaries pick one word or expression from the English language they believe "best reflects the mood of the times," ABC News reports. For the year 2013 that word is "selfie," described as a self-taken picture. Britain's Oxford University Press, who published the dictionaries, said the word saw a huge jump in usage this year.
At first "selfie" was used on social networking sites like Twitter and Instagram but is now a part of the mainstream shorthand to describe any picture that a person takes of themself. The word beat others like "twerk," "showrooming" and "Bitcoin."
According to ABC, usually Oxford Dictionary will have two separate words of the year for the U.S. and U.K. but this year "selfie" was extremely popular in both areas. In the past words of the year have been "unfriend" in 2009, "credit crunch" in 2008, "carbon footprint" in 2007 and "Sudoku" in 2005.
The word of the year for 2012 was "GIF."
Judy Pearsall, the editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries, said she believes "selfie" was first used in 2002 on an Australian online forum. The hashtag #selfie is said to have first been used on the photo-sharing site Flickr in 2004.
"But usage wasn't widespread until around 2012, when 'selfie' was being used commonly in mainstream media," she said.
Recently Ebay Deals did an infographic survey to determine which celebrity had the most selfies on their social networking sites. Kylie Jenner took the lead with the most self-taken photos on Instagram with 451. She was followed by Snoop Lion (271) and Ariana Grande (243). Six other Kardashian's also made the list.
On Twitter, Miley Cyrus tweeted the most selfies with 121 followed by Tyra Banks (62) and Kendall Jenner (35).
