The dictionary folk at Merriam-Webster sum up 2016: surreal

The "surreal" entry in a Merriam-Webster's dictionary in New York. "Surreal" is Merriam-Webster's word of 2016 based on spikes in lookups. [Photo/Agencies]

Was 2016 a dream or a nightmare?

Try something in between: "surreal", which is Merriam-Webster's word of the year, unveiled last week.

Meaning "marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream," or "unbelievable, fantastic," the word joins Oxford's "post-truth" and Dictionary.com's "xenophobia" as the year's top choices.

"It just seems like one of those years," says Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor at large.

The company tracks year-over-year growth and spikes in lookups of words on its website to come up with the top choice. This time around, there were many periods of interest in "surreal" throughout the year, often in the aftermath of tragedy, Sokolowski says.

Major spikes came after the Brussels attack in March and again in July, after the Bastille Day massacre in Nice and the attempted coup in Turkey. All three received huge attention around the globe and had many in the media reaching for "surreal" to describe both the physical scenes and the "mental landscapes," Sokolowski says.

The single biggest spike in lookups came in November, he says, specifically Nov 9, the day Donald Trump went from candidate to president-elect.