Wordle, the popular puzzle game that launched late last year, had a grip on dictionary searches this year.
Cambridge Dictionary, which self-reports roughly 2.6 billion page views each year, announced on Wednesday that “homer” was crowned its Word of the Year.
The page for “homer” received 65,401 views on May 5, a number driven by the word’s time as the Wordle daily answer, according to the dictionary.
The dictionary, a product of England’s Cambridge University Press, explained in a press release that Americans were familiar with the word due to its association with a home run in baseball. Players outside of the U.S., it said, lacked that familiarity, leading to frustration and an increase in searches on May 5.
The dictionary chose the word after data revealed it was the most-searched word on its site this year.
Merriam-Webster, another popular dictionary, also picks a word of the year using different criteria, with “vaccine” as the word of the year in 2021. It’s unclear whether Wordle will play a role in its decision for 2022.
The popular puzzle game saw 2 million daily players in January, according to The Guardian. The New York Times purchased the game that same month.
Cambridge Dictionary deemed the increase in search as the “Wordle effect” and said it caused spikes in searches for other five-letter words such as humor — spelled humour in the U.K. — along with bayou and caulk.
The puzzle game, which was created by a Welsh software engineer, has led to confusion among players from different countries in the past. The answer “bloke,” for example, sparked ire among American players back in February.