Top Ten Words of the Year

Merriam-Webster creates a top ten list of words based on their online dictionary look-ups over the course of the year. Below are the ten words, the part of speech, and their definition. I challenge you to use some of them in your speech. What sentences can you come up with?

1. Blog (noun) : a website that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer
2. Incumbent (noun) : the holder of an office or ecclesiastical benefice
3. Electoral (adj.) : of or relating to an elector or election; i.e. the electoral college
4. Insurgent (noun) : a person who revolts against a civil authority or an established government; a person who acts contrary to the politics and decisions of one's own political party
5. Hurricane (noun) : a tropical cyclone with winds of 174 miles per hour or greather that occurs especially in the western Atlantic, that is usually accompanied by rain, thunder, and lightening, and that sometimes moves into temperate latitudes
6. Cicada (noun) : any of a family (Cicadidae) of homopterous insects which have a stout body, wide blunt head, and large transparent wings and the males of which produce a loud buzzing noise usually by stridulation
7. Peloton (noun) : the main body of riders in a bicycle race
8. Partisan (noun) : a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause, or person; one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance
9. Sovereignty (noun) : supreme excellence or an example of it; a supreme power especially over a body politic
10. Defenestration (noun) : a throwing of a person or thing out of a window

For more info, visit www.m-w.com!