‘Trump’ Named Children’s Word of the Year. That’s Trumpwinningtastic.

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LONDON — It’s the greatest word. The best.

After analyzing 131,798 short stories written by children taking part in a BBC competition, the Oxford University Press has declared “Trump” to be Children’s Word of the Year. A statement by the publishing house said the word was chosen because of its significant increase in use — 839 percent — and the wide variety of contexts in which it was deployed.

It’s the first time that a name, or proper noun, has won word of the year in either the children’s or adult categories (the 2016 Children’s Word of the Year was “refugee”). But if it initially seems like an odd choice, rest assured it has been put to inventive use.

“Trump” features in stories as a character name (Boggle Trump, Snozzle Trump, Trumpdiddlydumper) and acquires prefixes, suffixes and other fixes to become Trumpelstilskin, Trumpido, Trumpeon, Trumpyness and Trumpwinningtastic. It is also used as a verb, as evidenced in this passage by one young author:

“Suddenly I did the loudest trump EVER! The whole restaurant gasped, as if it was a crime. ‘You trumped in front of the Queen,’ hissed the shark.”

Mr. Trump also features as himself. In “Donald Trump Goes to the Moon,” one entrant wrote: “10… 9…8 ‘my hair is so amazing’…7. ‘And real’. 6… 5 ‘I am going to make the moon great again!’. 3… 2…1 blast off!!”

Lest other political figures feel left out, “Hillary Kitten” and “Obama Llama” appeared, too.

Runner-up words included Brexit, fake news, social media, vlog and super. But they weren’t the best.

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