Maroon 5’s Adam Levine may have been named by People magazine as the 2013 Sexiest Man Alive, but what’s the sexiest word? According to Oxford Dictionaries, the answer is selfie.

Use of the word has risen 17,000 percent in the past year, according to Oxford, which made the word its word of the year. Not bad for a word first used 11 years ago in 2002.

“Social media sites helped to popularize the term, with #selfie appearing on the photo-sharing website Flickr as early as 2004, but usage wasn’t widespread until 2012, when selfie was being used commonly in mainstream media sources,” says Judy Pearsall, editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries. “The use of the diminutive -ie suffix is notable, as it helps to turn an essentially narcissistic enterprise into something rather more endearing.”

Selfie beat out words and phrases such as binge-watch, bitcoin, schmeat (synthetic meat) and twerk. (AFP)

Paul Asay has covered religion for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for Plugged In and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He lives in Colorado Springs with wife Wendy and his two children. Follow him on Twitter.