Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com choose same 'word of the year': Pandemic

At least two Dictionary companies declared a similar ‘top’ word as ir 2020 word of year for first time: Pandemic. Experts at Oxford English Dictionary ted that word gained popularity and entered mainstream us due to COVID-19 crisis this year. Merriam-Webster and dictionary.com chose ‘pandemic’ specifically as it started to trend after WHO declared a global health emergency citing, that an epidemic h ‘swelled’ to a pandemic crisis.  search volume for pandemic sustained highest levels on-site over course of 2020, dictionary.com informed in a release. Meanwhile, Merriam-Webster.com told AP that word picked up when first US COVID-19 fatality was recorded and a cluster outbreak broke out on a cruise liner. 

“That probably isn’t a shock,” Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster, told Associated Press.

“Often big news story has a technical word that’s associated with it and in this case, word pandemic is t just technical but has become general. It’s probably word by which we’ll refer to this period in future,” he ded.

According to Merriam-Webster, searches for word were 115,806 percent higher by March 11, and on dictionary.com, word pandemic skyrocketed by 13,575 percent in 2020. “On day, when COVID-19 h n only taken 4,291 lives around world,” Dictionary informed. It ded that search volume for word averd a 1000 percent increase compared to 2019. “It remained in top 10% of all lookups for much of year since,” company said in a release, ding that pandemic is a "consequential word for a consequential year.”

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[Photo word pandemic is displayed in a dictionary in Washington. Merriam-Webster on Monday anunced “pandemic” as its 2020 word of year. Credit: AP Photo/Jenny Kane]

Keyword 'trend'

According to Sokolowski, lookup traffic for pandemic spiked t entirely due to searchers but people were looking at information related to keyword all around year as 2020 was about ecomic meltdown due to pandemic, protocols and government visory all related to pandemic, and disinformation and or challenges surrounding word. “Our choice was overwhelmingly clear,” Dictionary said. “From our perspective as documenters of English langu, one word kept running through profound and manifold ways our lives have been upended.”

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