By Li Hongmei

'Selfie' - a smartphone self-portrait - has been declared word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries.

It beat a number of other buzzwords, including 'twerk' (a raunchy dance move performed by singer Miley Cyrus) and 'binge-watch' (watching lots of TV).

Selfie emerged in 2002 when it was used by an Australian who posted a picture of injuries to his face sustained when he tripped over some steps. The man's original forum posting of September 13, 2002 had read: "Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps. I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie."

Oxford Dictionaries defines a selfie as "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website".

Selfie has now seen a 17,000% increase in usage as a mainstream English word. The word was included on Oxford Dictionaries Online this August but is not yet in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Oxford usually assigns a separate word of the year to the US and to the UK, but it said "selfie" captured the imagination across the world. The decision to crown it the word of the year was unanimous and "with little if any argument".