Oxford Dictionaries selects 'tears of joy' emoji as 'word' of the year 😂

You won't find it in the dictionary and you can't really pronounce it. And whether you can write it down depends on your artistic ability.

Oxford Dictionaries' word of the year is not, strictly speaking, a word. It's 😂. 

Yes, the "word of the year" is an emoji, specifically the "face with tears of joy" emoji. 

In a blog post, Oxford Dictionaries said, "😂 was chosen as the 'word' that best reflected the ethos, mood, and pre-occupations of 2015."

The dictionary publisher partnered with mobile keyboard software maker SwiftKey to analyze usage statistics for all emoji.

They found that 😂 was the most used emoji worldwide, making up 20 per cent of all the emojis used in the U.K. in 2015, and 17 per cent of those in the U.S.

But although Oxford Dictionaries chose to grace 😂 with this honour, don't expect this or any other emoji to appear in a dictionary. At least, not in the near future. 

The company also released a short list of runners-up for word of the year, including "sharing economy," "on fleek" and, on a more serious note, "refugee." 

Oxford Dictionaries was clearly excited about their selection. There was cake. 

They produced a YouTube video for the occasion. 

But others were not as enthusiastic about a digital pictograph being called "word of the year." 

The word of the year for 2014 was vape, so whether 😂 is an improvement is surely a topic for much debate. 

Oxford's previous words of the year have included such social media buzzwords as selfie, GIF and unfriend.