http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2
Our Language Log post on "Kanji of the year 2014", zei 税 ("tax"), was rather extensive, so it should suffice to give an indication of how the selection is made and the nature of the ritual surrounding the public unveiling of the choice. I won't attempt to duplicate such a full treatment for the kanji that was chosen this year, but will focus on a significant difference between last year's KOTY and this year's. For additional information concerning this year's selection, I recommend reading this report:
"2015 Kanji of the Year: 'An' Juxtaposes Security and Unease" (12/15/15)
The interesting distinction between this year's and last year's KOTY is the relatively straightforward semantic quality of last year's choice (it basically just means "tax; toll") versus the complicated polysemy of this year's choice, an / yasu[i] 安: "cheap, inexpensive; quiet; relax, rest; repose; contented, peaceful; tranquil; calm; restful; welfare; well-being; safe(ty); stability, equilibrium; relief; peace of mind; easy-going", and so on and so forth. 安 by itself does not mean all of these things, since in most cases it needs to take on various endings or enter into combinations with other characters to have these different senses. See here and here.
Aside from all of the above meanings and others related to them, an / yasu[i] 安 also figures in the surname of Prime Minister Abe (安倍) Shinzō, where it has the pronunciation a, not an or yasu[i].
As I have pointed out in previous posts about Chinese and Japanese "character of the year" selections, usually what we are dealing with is a morpheme or group of morphemes mapped on to a single character, rather than a word. Words can also be polysemous, but not so prodigiously as characters.
