2002 Word of the Year: weapons of mass destruction or WMD, sought for in Iraq.

Most Likely to Succeed: blog, from “weblog,” a website of personal events, comments, and links.

Most Useful: google (verb), as in “to google someone,” to search the Web using the search engine Google for information on a person or thing.

Most Creative: Iraqnophobia, strong fear of Iraq.

Most Unnecessary: wombanization, feminization, from Alexander Barnes’s book “The Book Read Backwards: The Deconstruction of Patriarchy and the Wombanization of Being.”

Most Outrageous: neuticles, fake testicles for neutered pets.

Most Euphemistic: regime change, forced change in leadership.

2001 Word of the Year: 9-11, 9/11 or September 11, terrorist attacks on that date.

Most Likely to Succeed: 9-11.

Most Useful (tie): facial profiling, using video “faceprint ” to identify terrorists and criminals, and second-hand speech, cell phone conversations heard by others in public places.

Most Creative: shuicide bomber, terrorist with bomb in shoes.

Most Unnecessary: impeachment nostalgia, longing for the superficial news of the Clinton era.

Least Likely to Succeed: Osamaniac, woman sexually attracted to terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Most Outrageous: assoline, methane used as fuel. Most Euphemistic: daisy cutter, large bomb that explodes a few feet above the ground.

Most Inspirational: Let’s roll! words of Todd Beamer to start the attack that foiled the hijackers of United Flight 93 on September 11.

2000 Word of the Year: chad, a small scrap of paper punched from a voting card.

Most Likely to Succeed: muggle, Harry Potter term for a non-wizard; a mundane, unimaginative person.

Most Useful: civil union, legal same-sex marriage.

Most Creative: dot bomb, a failed dot-com.

Most Unnecessary: sudden loss of wealth syndrome.

Least Likely to Succeed: kablokeys, used in phrases like “It scared the kablokeys out of me.”

Most Outrageous: wall humping, rubbing a thigh against a security card scanner to allow access without removing the card from one's pocket.

Most Euphemistic: courtesy call, an uninvited call from a telemarketer.

Brand New (coined during the year, not previously attested): unconcede, to rescind a concession as presidential candidate Al Gore did on election night. (It was later discovered that candidate Bob Dole had unconceded the presidential election in 1996, and there were occasional instances of that word going back several centuries.)

(Also chosen in January 2000: Word of the Decade: web. Word of the Twentieth Century: jazz. Word of the Millennium: she.)