Rizz? Word of the year leaves me befuddled

Obsolescence creeps in on little cat feet.

One watches for signs. A creak in the body here. A memory escaped there. A fluidity of movement mysteriously evaporated.

And, occasionally, a smack in the forehead that’s a blunt reminder that you’re aging.

One such poke arrived this week when the folks behind the august Oxford English Dictionary unveiled their word of the year:

Rizz.

OK, boomer, you say to yourself. How can that be the word of the year when I’ve never heard of it? Never seen it, never used it, doesn’t even provoke the slimmest thread of recognition, not a whit of a gossamer of a scintilla of recognition.

The reason for my befuddlement, it turns out, is that rizz is all the rage in places I do not frequent. Like TikTok, where it apparently has its own hashtag that has received billions of views. It’s popular slang among Gen Z, per the Oxford folks, and means, and I’m quoting them, “style, charm, or attractiveness; the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner.”

It’s thought to be short for “charisma.” You wouldn’t think there’d be such uncertainty about a word of the year but it’s a delightful comment on the fluidity of language, on the way words are coined and adapted and spread. The process is egalitarian. Anyone can invent a word, though their “authorship” might remain unknown.

Rizz, as noted, was popular among TikTokians before bursting into a more widespread limelight — though still not wide enough to enlighten me — in June when English actor Tom Holland of “Spiderman” fame told a BuzzFeed interviewer, “I have no rizz whatsoever. I have limited rizz. My brother Paddy has ultimate rizz.”

Cue the instant empathy, knowing what it’s like to have a younger brother who definitely was cooler — sorry, rizzier — than you. And I say that despite my skepticism that Tom’s admission was less genuine and more pose, given how his pretty-darned-good life has been working out. Nevertheless, I can say now…