The 2020 prize for Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year went to an apparent selection: pandemic.
The term had the most on-line dictionary lookups of any word, Merriam-Webster stated on its web-site, just after a year in which at least 1.4 million persons globally have died from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Sometimes a single word defines an era, and it’s fitting that in this exceptional – and exceptionally difficult – year, a single word came immediately to the fore,” the dictionary publisher stated.
Pandemic is defined as “an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affects a significant proportion of the population,” according to Merriam-Webster.com.
The word’s Greek roots are “pan,” which means all or just about every and “demos,” which means persons, Merriam-Webster stated.
Dictionary lookups skyrocketed on March 11 when the World Health Organization officially labeled COVID-19 a pandemic.
The word “saw the single largest spike in dictionary traffic in 2020, showing an increase of 115,806% over lookups on that day in 2019,” stated the enterprise, founded in 1831.
Last year’s winner was “they” as made use of to describe an individual who does not recognize as male nor female. That follows winners “justice” in 2018, “feminism” in 2017 and “surreal” in 2016.
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