In this Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2010 photo, Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster Inc., thumbs through the index card files at the dictionary publisher, in Springfield, Mass. Merriam-Webster... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2010 photo, Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster Inc., holds up reference index card files showing the word "pragmatic" at the dictionary publisher, in Springfield,... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2010 photo, the word "austerity" is shown on an index card file at dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster Inc. in Springfield, Mass. Merriam-Webster has chosen "austerity" as its... (Associated Press) 
 
 The move sparked angry protests, strikes and riots across the country as unemployment skyrocketed and the crisis spread to other European nations. The move also incited a rush to online dictionaries from those searching for a definition. 
 
 Austerity, the 14th century noun defined as "the quality or state of being austere" and "enforced or extreme economy," set off enough searches that Merriam-Webster named it as its Word of the Year for 2010, the dictionary's editors announced Monday. 
 
 John Morse, president and publisher of the Springfield, Mass.-based dictionary, said "austerity" saw more than 250,000 searches on the dictionary's free online tool and came with more coverage of the debt crisis. 
 
 "What we look for ... what are the words that have had spikes that strike us very much as an anomaly for their regular behavior," Morse said. "The word that really qualifies this year for that is 'austerity'." 
 
 Runners-up also announced Monday included "pragmatic," "moratorium," "socialism," and "bigot" _ the last word resulted from public uses by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former CNN host Rick Sanchez and former NPR senior analyst Juan Williams. 
 
 Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor-at-large, said this year's top 10 words were associated with a news event or coverage, which editors believe resulted in prolonged jumps in searches. 
 
 "Sometimes it's hard to pinpoint the searches on one particular news event, but typically that is what sparks people's curiosity in a word," Sokolowski said. 
 
 For example, "socialism" was searched, editors believe, because of coverage around federal bailouts and Democratic-backed federal health care legislation. And editors noticed that "pragmatic" was looked-up a number of times after midterm elections. 
 
 According to Morse, the dictionary's online website sees more than 500 million searches a year _ with most of those being usual suspects like "effect" and "affect." But he said words selected for the dictionary's top 10 were words that had searches hundreds of thousands of out-of-character hits. 
 
 Also making the top ten list was the word "doppelganger." Sokolowski said the word saw a jump in searches after George Stephanopoulos of ABC's "Good Morning America" called "Eat, Pray, Love" author Elizabeth Gilbert "Julia Roberts' doppelganger." Roberts played Gilbert in the book's film adaptation and resembles the writer. 
 
 "Doppelganger" was also used in the popular television show, "The Vampire Diaries." 
 
 "Sometimes, that all it takes," Sokolowski said. 
 
 Words "shellacking," "ebullient," "dissident," and "furtive" also made this year's top list. 
 
 Allan Metcalf, an English professor at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., and author of "OK: The Improbable Story of America's Greatest Word," said the list of words shows how the country is evolving because the public is looking up words that used to be very common. 
 
 "Around 20 to 30 years ago, everyone would know what 'socialism' was," said Metcalf, who is also executive secretary of the American Dialect Society. "Same with bigot. That fact that they have to be looked up says something about us." 
 
 That's true with some words like "shellacking," said Jenna Portier, an English instructor at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La. Although Merriam-Webster editors said searches for the word spiked after President Barack Obama said he and his party took "a shellacking" from voters in midterm election, Portier said the word is very common in southern Louisiana. "Where I'm from, it means to varnish something like wood," Portier said. 
 
 Shana Walton, a languages and literature professor also at Nicholls State University, said she understands how news events maybe influenced the dictionary's list. 
 
 "If 'moratorium' is one of the most looked-up words, that's clearly a reflection of how often the word was used in the wake of the BP oil spill," said Walton, a linguistic anthropologist who is doing research on oil and land in south Louisiana. "Many people in south Louisiana expressed much more outrage about the moratorium, frankly, than about the spill." 
 
 Metcalf said the American Dialect Society will release its "Word of the Year" winner in January, but it's selected by the group like Time's Person of the Year. ||||| The runners-up to Merriam-Webster's 2010 Word of the Year _ austerity _ with definitions from the publisher's collegiate dictionary and, when applicable, the news event or story that generated the interest in the word: 
 
 _ Pragmatic (adj.): relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters; practical as opposed to idealistic. 
 
 U.S. elected officials began to talk about more "pragmatic" solutions to the nation's problems after the Nov. midterm elections. 
 
 _ Moratorium (noun): a legally authorized period of delay in the performance of a legal obligation or the payment of a debt. 
 
 The Obama administration issued a "moratorium" on deepwater oil drilling following the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 _ Socialism (noun): any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods. 
 
 Socialism was in the news on and off around a number news stories, including those concerning federal bailouts and Democratic-backed federal health care legislation. 
 
 _ Bigot (noun): a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance. 
 
 Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown referred to voter as a "bigot" with a wireless microphone still on, former CNN host Rick Sanchez suggested Daily Show host Jon Stewart was a "bigot," and former NPR senior analyst Juan Williams got fired after he said on the Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor" that he wasn't a "bigot," but got nervous when he saw certain Muslims on airplanes. 
 
 _ Doppelganger (noun): a ghostly counterpart of a living person; comes from a German word that translates as "double goer." 
 
 ABC "Good Morning America" host George Stephanopoulos called "Eat, Pray, Love" author Elizabeth Gilbert "Julia Roberts' doppelganger." Roberts played Gilbert in the book's film adaptation. "Doppelganger" was also used in the popular television show, "The Vampire Diaries." 
 
 _ Shellacking (noun): a decisive defeat. 
 
 President Barack Obama said he and his party took "a shellacking" from voters frustrated over the pace of economic recovery, a day after Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives and lost ground in the Senate. 
 
 _ Ebullient (adj.): having or showing liveliness and enthusiasm. 
 
 A number of media outlets used "ebullient" to describe events around the rescue of the Chilean miners in October. 
 
 _ Dissident (adj.): disagreeing especially with an established religious or political system, organization, or belief. 
 
 The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xialbo, who not able to attend the ceremony in Oslo, Norway, because he remained a political prisoner in China, was often referred to as a "dissident." 
 
 _ Furtive (adj.): done by stealth; surreptitious. 
 
 A man shown on surveillance video shedding his shirt near a car bomb in Times Square in May was described by police as "looking furtively" as he walked quickly from the scene. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Source: Merriam-Webster.
– Austerity measures announced by governments across Europe this year sparked a surge in civil unrest, and a surge in people trying to find out exactly what the word means. Merriam-Webster says that, based on search trends, the noun—meaning "enforced or extreme economy"—is its word of 2010. AP reports that the word was searched for on the dictionary's free online tool more than a quarter of a million times. The runners-up, all of which the dictionary has traced back to news stories, include "pragmatic," "moratorium," "socialism," and "bigot." Searches for "doppelganger" spiked after George Stephanopoulos called Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert "Julia Roberts' doppelganger" on Good Morning America, and there were thousands of searches for "shellacking" after President Obama used the word to describe how his party fared in the midterm elections. Click for the complete list of runners-up.