"I mean I'm going to lean into it hard. I'm going to own this. I'm not going to try to be like 'Oh, I'm so modest.' I'm getting business cards made. But all of my friends will destroy me and I expect them to. And that's why they're my friends.” 

— Paul Rudd on being named People magazine’s 2021 Sexiest Man Alive

People Magazine named actor Paul Rudd, 52, 2021’s Sexiest Man Alive. I’m good with this. You? He’s cute. (And remember when he played Phoebe’s boyfriend on Friends?)

The first person he told about this LinkedIn-worthy new title and award was his wife of 18 years, who was more shocked than I — or probably anyone — was.

"She was stupefied," he told People about his wife, with whom he shares two children, Jack, 17, and Darby, 12. "But you know she was very sweet about it. After some giggling and shock, she said 'Oh, they got it right.' And that was very sweet. She was probably not telling the truth, but what's she going to say?”

I mean, is this a huge honour?

Quite frankly, I’m not sure if labelling someone “Sexiest Man Alive” is sexist and outdated (I'm offended… I'm triggered!) but I am sure that even if this label is indeed sexist and outdated, I admit I care as much about this as I do about what’s under the hood of my car.

What makes Rudd officially sexy, at least to me, is his self-deprecating humour, joking about how he expects his life to change. "I'm hoping now that I'll finally be invited to some of those sexy dinners with Clooney and Pitt and B Jordan," he says. "And I figure I'll be on a lot more yachts. I'm excited to expand my yachting life…"

The actor and family man is well aware that when people learn of his new title, they’ll most likely be like, say what? "This is not false humility. There are so many people that should get this before me.”

But this is a book newsletter, so now that we’ve got Sexiest Man Alive out of the way, let’s move on to 2021’s sexiest most looked-up words in our final newsletter of 2021!

(And, as a special bonus, thanks to our friends at Family Education, for you mothers who feel outdated, we’re also adding 2021’s sexiest slang words you should know. So keep scrolling, and let us know how many new words you learned here!)

I mean, these new words managed to express so much about one moment in time.

Thanks to our friends at Merriam Webster, here are the sexiest — well, most looked-up — words of 2021! (Have you heard of all of them?)

The ultimate list of the sexiest (or most looked-up) words of 2021

1. Vaccine: Interest in the definition of this word was intense in the past year: lookups for vaccine increased 601% year-over-year from 2020. The prominence of the word vaccine in our lives in this era becomes even more starkly clear when we compare 2021 to 2019, a period in which lookups for the word increased 1048%. Lookups of vaccine, already very high all year, jumped by 535%, long after discussions about vaccines began taking place in the press and widespread distribution in parts of the world were well underway. This new higher rate of lookups since August has remained stable throughout the late fall, showing not just a very high interest in vaccine, but one that started high and grew during the course of 2021.

2. Insurrection: The violent events of January 6th led to a striking spike in lookups for insurrection, driven by the intensity of the news coverage and interest in this story, combined with its uncertain political, legal, and criminal implications, made the definition of this word the object of sudden interest. Other words looked up at this time included coup d’état and riot, but insurrection became the word most used by some politicians and the press. The definition of insurrection is "an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government."

3. Perseverance: The word perseverance shot to the top of our lookups in February after NASA’s Mars rover “Perseverance” landed safely on the red planet on February 18th. The rover got its name thanks to student Alexander Mather, the seventh grader who submitted the winning entry to NASA’s "Name the Rover" essay contest. The name, chosen out of 28,000 entries is apt: Perseverance traveled almost 300 million miles over seven months—a remarkable journey. The word perseverance is from Latin persevērāre, meaning "to persist in a course of action or an attitude in spite of opposition, keep on.”

4. Woke: Lookups for woke saw dramatic increases several times in 2021. But it was during November’s election that the most dramatic increases occurred: lookups for woke were up 4,303% on November 8th in response to use of the word in election coverage. The use of woke drawing interest is a new one, compared to the word’s historic use as the past tense form of wake: the new use of woke is defined in our dictionary as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” The semantics of the newer use are evolving, and it’s increasingly used as a general pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning; the spikes in lookups mentioned above all correlate to instances in which reactions to racial and social injustice were dismissed as being “woke.”

5. Nomad: When the movie Nomadland snagged three of this year’s Oscar Awards on April 25th, including Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role, and Best Directing, lots of people turned to Merriam-Webster.com to look up the word nomad—enough people to make lookups jump 4,625%. Nomad can refer specifically to a member of a people who have no fixed residence but who move from place to place, usually seasonally and within a well-defined territory, or more broadly to someone who roams about. Nomad comes from the Latin word meaning “member of a wandering pastoral people,” and from the Greek verb that means "to pasture, graze (flocks)."

6.) Infrastructure: Lookups for infrastructure spiked 677% on April 7th, following President Biden’s announcement of his $2.3 trillion dollar plan. Sustained interest in this term was evident in public debates over what constitutes infrastructure and whether the word can be used to refer only to physical building and improvements to such things as roads and bridges, as opposed to some other elements of the proposal, such as broadband internet development and elder care funding. The debate was over the definition of the word itself. The Latin roots of infrastructure mean simply “underneath or below the structure." This word came to English from French, and is a relatively young word in English, dating to the mid-20th century.

7.) Cicada: Lookups for cicada were high for much of the spring and summer, as adult members of Brood X (as the particular group of periodic cicadas emerging in 2021 was called) made their way to the Earth’s surface, their larvae having been living underground for the past 17 years. Lookups were especially pronounced in May and June, when we saw increases of 1,442% and 264%, respectively. The word cicada is defined as “any of a family (Cicadidae) of homopterous insects which have a stout body, wide blunt head, and large transparent wings,” and came to English from Latin, by way of New Latin—that is, Latin as used since the end of the medieval period especially in scientific description and classification.

8.) Murraya: Murraya spiked in lookups on July 8th, after Zaila Avant-garde spelled it correctly to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. We define Murraya as “a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees having pinnate leaves and flowers with imbricated petals.” Zaila showed that she recognized that Murraya was an eponym, a word based upon a name, by asking the judges at the Bee: "Does this word contain the English name Murray, which could be the name of a comedian?” The word comes from New Latin, and was named not for Bill Murray, but for Johan A. Murray, an 18th century Swedish botanist. (Zaila got a surprise congratulations from Bill Murray on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” after her win.) Murraya has never had so many lookups as in the days following the Bee, and may never again.

9.) Cisgender: Cisgender saw dramatic spikes in lookups twice in 2021: the first time was in May, when lookups increased by 5,836% following the release of a CIA recruitment video in which a CIA member used the word to describe herself; the second in October, when lookups were up 20,811% after a student’s op-ed in a college newspaper used the word. Both events drew condemnation from those on the political right, as well as curiosity about the term itself.

Cisgender is defined as “of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.” The term is contrasted with transgender, and dates, per currently available evidence, to the mid-1990s. 

10.) Guardian: When Cleveland’s American League baseball team chose Guardians as its new name in July, lookups of the word guardian jumped 3,142%. The team considered more than a thousand names before settling on Guardians as a replacement for its much-criticized Indians moniker. The new name alludes to eight statuary guardians that flank both sides of Cleveland’s Hope Memorial Bridge. The Guardians of Traffic statues are 43 feet tall and, like the Greek God Hermes (the god of travel) The pertinent meaning of the word guardian here is “one that guards; custodian.” The word comes from the Middle English word gardein or wardein, source too of warden. Both words come from Anglo-French warder, “to guard.”

11.) Meta: When one of the most prominent companies in the world chooses an abstract word as its new name, you can expect millions of people to seek more information about that word. This is exactly what occurred in October, when lookups of meta jumped 10,860% in response to Facebook’s announcement that the company would now be called “Meta.” Meta is defined as “showing or suggesting an explicit awareness of itself or oneself as a member of its category; cleverly self-referential,” and as “concerning or providing information about members of its own category.” It’s an adjective constructed from a prefix: meta- has a number of meanings including “occurring later than or in succession to”; “situated behind or beyond”; and “later or more highly organized or specialized form of.” The name change is part of a shift in the company’s focus to something called the metaverse, a still-emerging term.

***

And now, for fun (LOL) and so you can annoy your teens over the holidays by using their secret code slang in convos — which are most likely already outdated. Thanks to our friends at Family Education, we present…

Extra: This is another way of saying that someone or something is too much or over the top. An example might be: “She is so extra. She talks about Karen non-stop.” Extra can also be used in a self-deprecating way.

Salty: What do pretzels, the ocean and your teen have in common? All of them can be super salty - in your teen's case, angry, upset or bitter. It can also refer to being jealous of someone else's success, as in, "My bestie got all salty when I beat her for the lead in the school play."

Snatched: You don’t have to worry if you hear your teen saying that someone or something is snatched. It’s actually a compliment, and it could sound something like: “I love those sneakers! They are so snatched.”

Yeet: Yeet can be a stand-alone expression of excitement ("Yeet! It's the weekend!), or a verb that usually refers to throwing something with force ("If this latte has foam, I'm going to yeet it in the trash.")

Big yikes: To use a slang word that we’ve already learned, big yikes is like yikes only extra. Think about how you might use “Yikes!” or “No way!” and then double it as in: “Big yikes! Did you see what Jared just posted on his finsta??”

Finsta: You monitor your teen’s social media and are probably even connected with them on Instagram, so you feel like you’re aware of their digital footprint, right? Unfortunately, they may have a “finsta” too, which is a secret second Instagram account. This account is hidden from parents and may tell a different story than your child’s official Instagram account.

Periodt: Think of this as the teen's version of her parent's "Because I said so," as in, no further questions, end of discussion. It can also add emphasis to a previous statement through the phrasing, "(and) that's on periodt.”

Flex: Flex is the new way to say "show off." An easy way to remember this one is to picture someone flexing their muscles. Your teen might say: “She is trying to flex all over finsta today since she received another college acceptance letter.”

No cap: This is probably equivalent to our “for real” or no “no lie” from our younger days. Teens are emphasizing that they are telling the truth with this one.

Lowkey: This is a way to describe something you want to keep on the down-low, to use one of our old slang words, or something that you don’t want to emphasize too much. For instance: “I lowkey can’t wait for this school year to be over… not that I’m mentioning this to my parents.”

Highkey: Conversely, highkey is a way to describe something that you really want to emphasize. For example, “I highkey can’t wait for this day to end! I want to scream it from the rooftops.”

I’m dead: ”I’m dead" refers to the fact that your teen is laughing so hard about something that she is dying of laughter.

Slay: Slay is a way to say someone looks amazing or did an excellent job at something. One friend might tell another: “Girl, you slayed in that game! I can’t believe how many points you scored.”

Straight Fire: Straight fire is otherwise known as "on the up and up" or better than all of the rest. It can also mean hot. Not as in temperature, but as in “That’s hot!” expressed in a positive way.

CD9: This one may take you back to the walkie-talkie days of your youth. CD9 stands for Code 9 as in, “Can’t talk! My parents are here!”

Gucci: It's still a prominent luxury Italian fashion brand, but for most teens, gucci is synonymous with good, cool or fine (as in, "it's all gucci).

Shook: Shook is a way to describe that you are emotionally shaken or affected by something. You might hear your teen say, “I stayed up all night reading that book, and now I am shook.”

Curve: This is slang for rejecting someone romantically or sidestepping their advances. You might see a post from your teen that referencing ignoring a girlfriend’s text with the following hashtag: #curve

Stan: This teen slang term has evolved in meaning over the years from a blend of "stalker" and "fan" to, more recently, a term showing support of someone or something. For example, "I used to think pop stars should stick to making music, but I totally stan Lady Gaga in 'A Star Is Born.'"

LMIRL: This is an acronym used in texting, and it’s something we almost never would have had a reason to say as kids. LMIRL means Let’s Meet In Real Life. Hopefully this person is not a creeper, to use another teen slang word.

POS: Today, POS is a quick acronym for texting or messaging that means Parents over Shoulder. So if you see this one, maybe you should stay near your teen for a few minutes longer. (It doesn’t mean Piece of Shit?)

Sus: Sus is an abbreviation for "suspect" or "suspicious," so this is a flag that some drama may be going down.

Lit or GOAT: These are two different ways to express what you might have meant by saying "dope" or "neat" or "cool" back in the day. Lit or GOAT (greatest of all time) means something happened that is really, really good.

Turnt: Short for "turned up," this term can mean really excited, wild or under the influence of alcohol or drugs. A person, a party or even a video game can be turnt.

Bae: Many teens use this term to refer to a person they are in a romantic relationship with or to refer to a best friend. Some millennial friends may use it as an acronym for “Before Anyone Else.” Others may use it in the form of one of the many new words created from African-American vernacular English. In this form, it’s derived from the pronunciation of “babe” as a term for a loved one.

Big Mad: This is another way of saying that you are extremely mad about something. A teen might say, “I am big mad that our teacher gave us a pop quiz in math class today!”

Diamond Hands: Diamond hands refers to the state of hanging on to a situation that carries extreme financial risk. For example, “Even though it was risky, my bae has diamond hands. She held on to her bitcoin investment until she made back $25,000.”

Mittens: The term mittens is a descriptive term for something that was not quite amazing, but not bad either. For example, “I didn’t ace the test, but I didn’t fail it either. I guess it was mittens.”

***

And there you have it! How many of these slang words did you know? (Personally, if this were a drinking game? I’d be lit!) And, unfortunately, parents, once you have mastered memorizing this list, it will probably be cheugy — or “out of date."

On that note, Re:books will be back in January, re:freshed, re:jeuvenated, and re:energized! 

From Maya B and me, we wish all of you a happy New Year, filled with a lot of laughter, love, good health, and of course, good re:ads! 

And if you’re not already, subscribe here and let us know what you’d like to know more of plus what should be added to our TBR (to be read) list next year.

See you in the metaverse in 2022! 

xo

Rebecca and Maya 

P.S. We already miss you!