Trending: ‘codify’

Lookups for 'codify' spiked 1,450% on May 3, 2022

Why are people looking up codify?

Codify was among our top lookups on May 3rd, 2022, in the wake of reports that the Supreme Court had decided to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Democratic lawmakers quickly unified Monday night on a renewed push to codify the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision into law in the wake of a bombshell report that the high court has the initial votes to explicitly overturn abortion rights.
— Brent D. Griffiths, Business Insider, 3 May 2022

What does codify mean?

Codify means "to reduce to a code," with code in this case referring to "a systematic statement of a body of law." Another way of expressing the meaning of codify is "to put (laws or rules) together as a code or system."

Where does codify come from?

Codify is a relatively new addition to English; the word has been in use for slightly over 200 years. The word it comes from has been with us for far longer; code has been in use since the 14th century. It can be traced to the Latin codex, meaning "trunk of a tree" or "document formed originally from wooden tablets."

Trend Watch is a data-driven report on words people are looking up at much higher search rates than normal. While most trends can be traced back to the news or popular culture, our focus is on the lookup data rather than the events themselves.