2017 was the year of Minions and “isms,” says Merriam-Webster dictionary

In 2017, we had minions on the mind.

So says Merriam-Webster. According to the English-language dictionary’s list of most-searched this year, the word for “a servile dependent, follower, or underling” was one of the most searched online, of the year. Minions made headlines in 2017 as one of the highest grossing movies worldwide, and as the subject of a viral YouTube video.

But what really wracked our brains was not one word at all, but a kind of word, illustrated by Merrian-Webster’s unusual choice for its annual “Word of the Year”: ism.

“Socialism,” “capitalism,” “fascism,” “terrorism,” and “communism” were all among the most-popular searches this year, along with “racism” and “feminism.”

As editor-at-large Peter Sokolowski told Quartz, 2017 was a year of news stories that raised a whole host of abstract, difficult concepts we struggled to define—not just a single word around a single event, like “bailout.” He writes in an email, “This simply seems to be a year of heightened anxiety in many ways.”