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Visitors to Merriam-Webster's website were invited to vote for one of 20 words and phrases culled from the most frequently looked-up words on the site.

The dictionary claims that "w00t" reflects a new direction in the American language led by a generation raised on video games and text-messaging, though it has yet to be included

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in the print dictionary.

Runner-up was "facebook", which when used as a verb apparently means to add someone to a list of friends or to search for people on the social networking site.

"People look for self-evident numeral-letter substitutions: 0 for O; 3 for E; 7 for T; and 4 for A," says Merriam-Webster President John Morse. "This is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character."

However, a separate survey conducted by media analysis company Global Language Monitor, which tracks words and phrases used on the internet, found that "Hybrid" took top honours as word of the year with "climate change" the top phrase.

"The English language is becoming more and more a globalised language every year," says Global Language Monitor president Paul Payack, noting that this year's list included words also culled from India, Singapore, China and Australia