What's the good word for 2006? You pick!

New York: Will "landslide" win by a landslide? Will "sectarian," "vendetta" or "decider" be named 2006's word of the year?

Merriam-Webster Inc, publisher of a leading US dictionary, is asking visitors to its website to pick the "one single word that sums up 2006."

The voting began November 20 and concludes on December 4, a spokesman for the Springfield, Massachusetts-based company, Arthur Bicknell, said in a telephone interview.

"We've been getting literally thousands of submissions," he said. Bicknell said the company, which is owned by Encyclopedia Britannica, has no idea what the leading words are at this point in the voting.

The publisher expects to announce the winner and the other top nine vote-getters around mid-December.

Merriam-Webster OnLine, which offers free definitions and synonyms through its web dictionary and thesaurus, began the word of the year competition in 2003, Bicknell said.

"We're trying something a little different this year" by seeking votes, the website says.

In past years, the top word was the one that got the most requests for a definition or synonym on the website. Last year, the honor went to "integrity." "Blog" was the word in 2004 and in 2003 it was "democracy."

Clues to this year's winner can be found in the lists of popular look-ups throughout 2006: "filibuster, sectarian, vendetta and decider," Merriam-Webster's President and publisher, John Morse, said in a news release.

Morse said "google" made its Top 20 lists after Merriam-Webster said it would add the use of "google" - the name of the popular web search engine - as a verb to the 11th edition of its Collegiate Dictionary.