Miriam Webster announced today that the gender neutral pronoun “they” is their 2019 Word of the Year, citing 313% in crease in lookups this year, compared to 2018.

In September of this year, they followed in the footsteps of the Oxford English Dictionary and Dictionary.com by adding “they” as a singular pronoun to reflect its use by non-binary people.

“English famously lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun to correspond neatly with singular pronouns like everyone or someone, and as a consequence they has been used for this purpose for over 600 years,” reps for Merriam-Webster wrote in a blog post announcing its 2019 Word of the YearOpens in New Window .

Other words that made the “it” list this year? Camp (following the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit ‘Camp: Notes on Fashion’ in May), quid pro quo, and impeach… HA!

(Photo of Sam Smith – who announced in September that their pronouns are they/them – via Avalon)