Word of the Year: Authentic

Year-end lists are coming out — starting with Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year, Hope writes.

The winner is: authentic.

• "[It's] the term for something we're thinking about, writing about, aspiring to, and judging more than ever," today's announcement reads.

Zoom in: Authentic is hard to define, Merriam-Webster says, and is often connected to identity.

• AI's impact on the world also means the line between what's real and what's fake "has become increasingly blurred."

Zoom out: Other words that were searched a ton this year thanks to the news cycle:

• X (as in Twitter's rebrand), as well as deepfake, coronation, dystopian, implode and rizz.