 Truthiness , although a " stunt word " , was named Word of the Year for 2005 by the American Dialect Society and for 2006 by Merriam @-@ Webster . Linguist and OED consultant Benjamin Zimmer pointed out that the word truthiness already had a history in literature and appears in the Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) , as a derivation of truthy , and The Century Dictionary , both of which indicate it as rare or dialectal , and to be defined more straightforwardly as " truthfulness , faithfulness " . Responding to claims , Colbert explained the origin of his word as : " Truthiness is a word I pulled right out of my keister " . 
