The word "Teal" has been chosen as the Australian Word of the Year for 2022, referring to the wave of independent candidates successfully challenging sitting Liberal politicians in this year's federal election, beating out the words "cooker", "eshay", "quiet quitting" and "shrinkflation".
Each year the National Dictionary Centre, based at the Australian National University, selects a word or expression that has gained prominence in the Australian landscape over the past 12 months.
The Centre chose "Teal" this year due to its prominence throughout the election campaign and its continuing use in political terminology when referring to Zali Steggall, Allegra Spender, Monique Ryan, Kate Chaney, Zoe Daniel and Sophie Scamps.
It refers to these independent, mostly female cross-benchers whose policy platform included climate action and integrity in politics and used the colour in their campaign material because it was in between green and Liberal blue.
Senior researcher at the Dictionary Centre Mark Gwynn said the word was chosen through an "informal process" involving members of the Centre.
"It basically comes about with our observations of the words being used this year, anything new and interesting that comes along and particularly our emphasis is on words that have originated or significant in Australian English," he said.
Mr Gwynn said the word ''Teal'' was a "standout" for word of the year because the term was created and used widely this year in Australia.
"It's certainly a great one because it is an Australian sense of teal and it looks to be, from what I've been able to find out that certainly, was applied this year, because of the colors of a number of these candidates, that teal color that we saw in their shirts and on their on their corflutes," he said.
He said it is hard to predict if the term will endure, but said the movement has been emerging for sometime, going back to Cathy McGowan in 2013 and the "Voices Of" campaigns.
"The movement has been around for a while, this type of independent, but what we saw this year is this word, to describe them," he said.
"It's an easy shorthand to describe a particular movement and so I think it'll be around for a little while yet."
"Teal" beat out the words "cooker" referring to anti-vaccine protesters and "eshay", which means a teenager or young man who is part of a group associated with anti-social behaviour.
New terms to define our economic circumstance were also shortlisted, including "quiet quitting" meaning not doing more work than is required and "shrinkflation" meaning a reduction in the size, quantity or quality of a pre-packaged product while pricing remains the same or increases.
Macquarie Dictionary has also shortlisted "Teal" as their word of the year, along with "bachelor's handbag", "hidden homeless" and "spicy cough", and has opened voting to the public.
