Last year’s winner was sontaku, a hitherto little-used and neutral term that summed up Japan’s political zeitgeist in 2017, as criticism over prime minister Shinzo Abe’s concentration of power mounted. The word refers to people who perform pre-emptive acts to ingratiate themselves to their superiors, and became popular last year in reference to a school scandal that implicated Abe and his wife.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that South Korea won the gold for women’s curling at the Winter Olympics this year.

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