The word must have been a top lookup at Merriam-Webster dot com in the past 12 months, and it must have seen a significant increase in lookups over the previous year.

該詞在過去12個月內一定是梅里亞姆-韋伯斯特點陣網的頂級查找詞，而且它的查找次數一定比前一年有顯著增加。

Our Word of the Year for 2019 is "they."

我們2019年的年度詞彙是 "他們"。

The shifting use of they has been the subject of increasing study and commentary in recent years, and especially in the past year.

近年來，特別是在過去的一年裡，對它們的使用變化的研究和評論越來越多。

Lookups for they increased by 313% in 2019.

2019年，他們的查找量增加了313%。

This curiosity is remarkable for a venerable old pronoun, and it's a consequence of shifts in the way the word they is used.

對於一個古老的代詞來說，這種好奇心是顯著的，這是他們這個詞使用方式轉變的結果。

English famously lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun to correspond neatly with singular pronouns like everyone, someone, and anyone.

英語中著名的缺乏一個不分性別的單數代詞，來與everyone、someone、anyone等單數代詞整齊對應。

And as a consequence, they has been used for this purpose for over 600 years.

是以，600多年來，它們一直被用於這一目的。

Much of this use is unremarkable, as in, "No one has to come if they don't want to."

這種用法大多不顯眼，如 "不想來就不用來了"。

More recently, though, they has also been used to refer to one person whose gender identity is non-binary, a use that was prominent in the news in 2019.

不過最近，他們也被用來指代一個性別認同為非二元的人，這個用法在2019年的新聞中很突出。

The American Psychological Association now recommends that singular they be preferred in professional writing over he or she when the reference is to a person whose gender is unknown or to a person who prefers they.

美國心理學協會現在建議，在專業寫作中，如果提到的是一個性別不明的人，或者提到的是一個更喜歡他們的人，那麼單數 "他們 "比 "他或她 "更可取。

It's also increasingly common to see they and them as a person's preferred pronouns in Twitter bios, email signatures, and conference name tags.

在Twitter的個人簡歷、電子郵件簽名和會議名稱標籤中，也越來越常見地看到他們和他們作為一個人的首選代詞。

Merriam-Webster added this sense in a new definition this past September.

梅里亞姆-韋伯斯特在今年9月的新定義中增加了這個意義。

Among the words that make up our Top 10 for 2019, several came from words looked up because of politics in the news: quid pro quo, impeach, and exculpate.

在我們2019年的十大詞彙中，有幾個詞來自於因為新聞中的政治而查找的詞彙：quid pro quo，彈劾和開脫。

Egregious was used to describe the failures of the navigation system of the 737 MAX planes.

Egregious被用來形容737 MAX飛機導航系統的故障。

Clemency was looked up following the release of a woman imprisoned at 16.

在釋放一名16歲被監禁的婦女後，寬大處理。

Snitty was looked up when Attorney General Barr used the word to describe a letter from Robert Mueller.

當司法部長巴爾用這個詞來描述羅伯特-穆勒的一封信時，Snitty被查了出來。

Tergiversation is a bookish word used in a column by George Will.

Tergiversation是喬治-威爾在專欄中使用的一個書生詞。

Crawdad is in the title of a bestseller.

小龍蝦是在一本暢銷書的書名中。

Finally, the definite article the or the spiked after The Ohio State University filed a trademark application for its use.

最後，在俄亥俄州立大學提出商標使用申請後，定冠詞the或the spiked。

People turn to the dictionary for lots of reasons, and we can be sure of one thing from this evidence: words matter.

人們求助於字典的原因很多，我們可以從這些證據中確定一件事：文字很重要。