"State capture" has been named the South African Word of the Year.
The Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), in association media research companies Focal Points and Newsclip made the announcement in a statement on Monday.
The other two contenders were "blesser" and "white monopoly capital".
"It was found that 'state capture' was used 20 231 times in over 11 000 South African newspapers. The majority of the coverage was found in daily newspapers, accounting for 68% of the total coverage mentioning 'state capture', followed by Sunday newspapers at 19%," they said.
The SA Word of the Year, they explained, was a term or expression preferred to reflect the passing year in language.
"For the first time in history, PanSALB and its lexicography units have decided to endorse this practice which has been happening internationally."
They said that the candidates for word of the year were reviewed by the organisation and its structures and then debated their merits, choosing one that captures the philosophy, mood, or obsessions of that particular year.
"All findings are based on research conducted by Focal Points and Newsclip on factual statistics found within South African media and serve as credible sources."
They said Focal Points and Newsclip keywords were tracked for the period January 1 to October 12, 2017.
"This media data was analysed to determine the prominence of the keywords within the media and to identify the frequency that they were used in credible print media."
They looked at occurrences (the number of times the keyword was used in the articles) and clip count (the number of articles that the keyword was mentioned in).
The use of the word state-capture has increased significantly in 2017.
"The concept of state-capture has been in existence, but PanSALB has seen a spike in frequency this year in the context of the Gupta email leaks and systemic political corruption."
They emphasised that the word of the year need not have been coined within the past twelve months.
