This was a year shot through with uncertainty: economic, political, and even meteorological. But even in the shakiest, most anxiety-ridden times, we seek solace in the endless productivity of words, coining the new and breathing life into the old to make sense of our world.

Looking back on the words that defined 2012, one senses that we were grasping for fresh ways to create order out of all the chaos, racing to name things exuberantly and fast. In retrospect, sometimes all we are left with is a pleasing but problematic linguistic shorthand for less-than-tidy events and concepts.