Blog is word of the year

The most requested online definition this year for the dictionary, Merriam-Webster was “blog” — a word not even yet in the official dictionary. The company’s Web sites get 10 lookup requests per second on average, and more than 100 per second during peak hours.

Editors had planned to include “blog” in the 2005 annual update of both the print and online versions of Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary. But in face of demand, the company quickly added an early definition to some of its online sites.

Typically, it takes about 20 years of usage for a word to become prominent enough to merit a place in an abridged dictionary.