New Oxford American Dictionary yesterday declared “Unfriend” as its 2009 Word of the Year. Oxford befriend ‘unfriend’ and added it to the dictionary term from a list of other worthy finalist from various domain like technology, economy etc.
Expressing removing someone as a friend on social networking sites, verb ‘Unfriend’ highlights the increasing craze and mass involvement of public in various social networking sites like Facebook which enroll more than 300 million users alone. Differing from the persisting “un-” prefixed adjectives words (unacceptable, unpleasant), and other familiar “un-” verbs (uncap, unpack) “unfriend” assumes a verb sense of “friend” that is really not used.
Though ‘Unfriend’ is becoming popular with the trend but the other 
word finalists are notably useful portmanteaus. Those under technology heading includes ‘hashtag’ (a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets), ‘intexticated’ (distracted because texting on a cellphone while driving a vehicle), ‘paywall’, ‘sexting’ meaning a way of blocking access to a part of a website which is only available to paying subscribers and sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cellphone respectively, each term seemingly viable in usage.
Some other interesting finalists are ‘freemium’ and zombie bank under economy. ‘Freemium’ used to describe a business model in which some basic services are provided for free, with the aim of enticing users to pay for additional, premium features or content; word could get very popular with the increasing popularity of the trend to entice more customers.
The notable word cluster of 2009 according to Oxford University dictionary press includes words related to microblogging site Twitter and other related to Obamaisms.