In August of 2012, Merriam-Webster released their annual list of new dictionary words—terms and popular slang that have earned their way into the lexicon through common use. At the very top, above “bucket list,” “game changer” and “sexting,” was a phrase popularized by the O of O, the Oprah Magazine herself: “Aha moment.” The expression is a prime example, perhaps second only to “live your best life,” of how Oprah’s indelible cultural influence extends even to language.
What is an “aha moment,” exactly?
As Oprah explained in a video for Merriam-Webster, an aha moment is officially defined as “A moment of sudden inspiration, insight, recognition or comprehension.”
“I always love those moments when I sit down to talk to somebody and they say things that make me look at life or a situation in a completely different way,” she explained, saying it’s the kind of a “lightbulb, bing bing bing” moment, in which “the little hairs on your arms stand up.”
Oprah expanded upon her personal definition in a 2017 visit to Harry Connick Jr.’s talk show, Harry, where she told Connick she’d been saying it on The Oprah Winfrey Show for so long she couldn’t remember when it began. The thing about an aha moment, Oprah said, is that “you think you’ve never thought of it that way before…But you can’t have an ‘aha’ unless you already knew it. So the aha is the remembering of what you already knew, articulated in a way to resonate with your own truth. So the aha isn’t somebody teaching you something; the aha is somebody helping you to remember.”
