#10: Detente

With a partial thawing of the Soviet-American Cold War early in the decade, this word received a lot of attention.

For example, as Time reported in 1972,

"[The U.S.-Soviet summit] underscored the drive toward détente based on mutual self-interest – especially economic self-interest on the part of the Soviets, who want trade and technology from the West." — Time, June 5, 1972

The French word détente once referred to the release of something in a mechanical sense – e.g. a wheel inside a clock.

In English it came to mean the release of tensions in a political sense.