This year, millions of learners from around the world mastered new words with Vocabulary.com. We’re looking back at the viral vocabulary and captivating collections for a story of the year in words.
Where were word learners in 2023?
Learners all across the world logged in to Vocabulary.com to boost their word knowledge! The top countries for visitors to Vocabulary.com were the United States of America, Canada, Australia, China, and India. We are thrilled to see word learning take place worldwide, for both native speakers and English language learners!
In the US, Florida topped the charts for most words mastered in 2023 with almost 2.3 million words! Over 2,800 learners in Florida mastered metaphor, the top word in the Sunshine State. Other states in the top 5 include:
- California (1,386,346)
- New York (895,944)
- Texas (631,957)
- Ohio (587,301)
What were they learning?
A glimpse into the vocabulary people are learning gives us a word’s eye view of the year.
The most searched words of 2023 were doppelganger, altruistic, ego, paradox, and semantics - what a stochastic mix of words!Over 2 million learners across the globe mastered a whopping 28 million words! The most mastered words of 2023 were metaphor, simile, evidence, claim, and alliteration. With over 34,000 schools using Vocabulary.com, we can see how students are using our learning resources to master the critical thinking and literary words that make them better readers, writers, and communicators. Learning academic words like these helps all learners in the classroom and beyond.
The teachers who rely on Vocabulary.com to provide curriculum-aligned word learning for their students assigned these books most frequently in 2023.
Top 5 books in elementary schools
- Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
- Refugee by Alan Gratz
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
- The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
- Free Lunch by Rex Ogle
Top 5 books in middle schools
- The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
- The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
- A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
- I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
- Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick
Top 5 Books in high schools
- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
In addition to these curriculum-aligned lists, our team also curates thematic, topical collections throughout the year. For instance, our Words to Help You Win at Wordle collection remains popular.
What was new in 2023?
This year, our team added 563 new learnable words and over 6,000 new questions to provide even more learning! Check out one of our newest collections highlighting cozy holiday reads.
We also added tons of new resources for a better way to teach and learn vocabulary. Some of our favorite additions in 2023 include:
- Dictionary: We’ve made huge improvements to our dictionary, adding 75,000 IPA transcriptions, 14,000 pronunciation videos, 3,000 images, and over 450 new words!
- VocabTrainer: Our newest learning activity VocabTrainer™ combines adaptive technology and gamification for a fun way to master words.
- Personalized Leaderboards: These new leaderboards make it easy for educators to visualize progress, host fun competitions, and incentivize word learning.
To learn more about Vocabulary.com’s newest features, check out this blog post.
As we reflect on all the word learning in 2023, we are grateful to all of our lexicographic learners! If you're looking to make 2024 more verbose, vivacious, and vocabulary-full, start the new year with unlimited access to word learning resources on Vocabulary.com.