Oxford Dictionary Names an Emoji as "Word" of the Year - Most Used Word-Photo

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The Oxford University Press has named the "Face with Tears of Joy" emoji as the Word of the Year for 2015, which has also seen a rise in usage of emojis overall.

The Oxford University Press is the organization that manages the famous Oxford Dictionary database. Since it can add new words to the dictionary (like "googling" for example), the organization has to actively monitor the usage of the current dataset of words in real life. It realizes this via its own website and various partners.

One of these partners is SwiftKey, a leading mobile technology company, which helped the Oxford University Press track the usage of emojis across mobile devices.

Data gathered through this effort has shown that, among all emojis, the "Face with Tears of Joy" emoji has been the most used, both in the US with 17% and in the UK with 20%. Compared to last year, the same emoji had a share among its fellow emojis of 9% and 4%, accordingly.

Taking into account the fact that the word "emoji" itself, added to the dictionary only in 1997, has almost tripled in usage compared to last year, the organization has decided to name a pictogram as Word of the Year, for the first time in its history.

If you're curious, last year's Word of the Year was "vape," 2013's selection was "selfie," and in 2012, the Word of the Year was "GIF." You can see the trend of choosing words related to mobiles, instant messaging, and teen-focused tech.