Melbourne, Nov 17 The New Oxford American Dictionary has named 'unfriend', which means deleting a friend from a site such as Facebook, as its word of the year.

Oxford University Press USA revealed in a blog post that 'unfriend', a verb, had beaten netbook, sexting, paywall, birther and death panel for the honour.

"Unfriend has real lex-appeal," the Herald Sun quoted Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer for Oxford's US dictionary program as saying.

"It has both currency and potential longevity.

"In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for word of the year," she added.

Previous words of the year had included carbon neutral, locavore and hypermiling.

Locavores are people who eat locally grown food while hypermilers modify their cars and driving techniques to maximise petrol mileage. (ANI)