‘Selfie’ has been given the prestigious title of 2013 world of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary, after officially becoming a word back in August.

'Selfie' Beats Out 'Twerk'

To take the 2013 title, “selfie” beat out “twerk,” “bitcoin” and “schmeat.” While twerk is the well-known gyrating dance made famous by Miley Cyrus and bitcoin is the virtual currency that’s teetering on the brink of the mainstream, schmeat is slightly less well known. It refers to the faux-meat created by scientists in a lab earlier this year.

_{Rihanna selfie with a loris}

After analyzing the usage of the words over the last year, "selfie" emerged as the obvious winner. "Language research conducted by Oxford Dictionaries editors reveals that the frequency of the word selfie in the English language has increased by 17,000% since this time last year," Oxford wrote.

'Selfie's First Usage Was In 2002

While the popularity of “selfie” really increased within the last year, its origin was over a decade ago, according to Oxford. The dictionary claims that the first known usage of the term was in an Australian chat room in 2002. "Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps,” read the post. “I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie."

_{Justin Bieber 'selfie'}

In the Oxford dictionary, the definition for “selfie” reads: "A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website." The narrow definition carefully excludes photos that would fall under the long-used term “self-portrait,” applied to both paintings and pictures taken with a camera.

Last year’s Oxford word of the year was the term for compressed image files, “GIF.”

– Chelsea Regan

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