Femicide, the most consulted word on Treccani.it in 2026

Feminicide has been the most consulted word on the Treccani.it portal since the beginning of 2026, ahead of maranza and fake news, which occupy second and third place respectively. This is followed by overtourism, influencers, smart working, followers, riders, memes and selfies. Words that were new until recently, have now entered the vocabularies and become habitual in everyday language, in the media and in news events, to the point of establishing themselves in common use and among the searches of the Treccani portal of the Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia, created to digitize, update and make its encyclopedic and linguistic heritage accessible free of charge online. Femicide is the case of femicide, the spread of which responds to the dramatic need to precisely name "the killing of a woman by a man, often her husband or partner, within a culture in which women are often oppressed and subjected to violence because of their gender". Registered among the neologisms, it later entered the Treccani vocabulary and was chosen by the Institute as the word of the year 2023 precisely because of its socio-cultural relevance. Particular is the case of maranza, a neologism which in the 1980s and 1990s indicated an "inhabitant mostly of the urban outskirts, not necessarily young, uncouth, uncouth, who tries to show off", and then broadened its meaning to now indicate the "young person who is part of noisy, overbearing street groups and recognizable by his flashy clothing and his vulgar language and manner", thus gaining his place in the dictionary. Fake new, overtourism and influencers The Internet and social media then consecrated another term that conquered the podium: fake news, an English expression used to indicate "false news, spread on purpose online and circulated rapidly". Overtourism has instead moved from the specialist lexicon to journalistic, political and institutional language with the meaning of "tourist overcrowding, i.e. the exaggerated presence of tourists in certain periods of the year in cities and famous places, which causes or may cause damage to monuments and the environment, as well as inconvenience for residents". Linked to the birth of new professions is the term influencer, used to refer to "a popular character on social networks, who can influence the behaviour, choices and purchases of a certain audience, the followers, i.e. the people who follow him", who are in seventh place in the ranking. Smart working and riders...