Merriam Webster's Word of the Year 2021
(You can read the full story on all the words here).
It was no surprise to find out that Merriam Webster's word of the year for 2021 was Vaccine. Vaccine comes from the latin word for "cow", vacca, because the term was originally used to refer to inoculation using doses of cowpox, which protected humans against smallpox. This relatively new English word dates to the 1880's.
Other top words for look ups in 2021 on the Merriam Webster site include the following.
Insurrection - which means an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government. This word came to English from French.
Perseverance - defined as continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition, coming from Latin.
Woke - a new word originating in African American English, defined as aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).
Nomad - referring to a member of a people who have no fixed residence, who move from place to place, usually seasonally; or more bradly to someone who roams about. This word comes from Latin and Greek.
Infrastructure - came to English from French and dates to the mid-20th century. It means underneath or below the structure.
Cicada - is defined as any of a family (Cicadidae) of homopterous insects which have a stout body, wide blunt head, and large transparent wings, and is from Latin.
Murraya - which spiked in lookups after the Scripps National Spelling Bee in July, is a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees having pinnate leaves and flowers with imbicated petals.
Cisgender - defined as of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.
Guardian - one that guards; custodian, from Middle English. This word jumped in look ups when Cleveland's American League baseball team chose it as their new name.
Meta - defined as showing or suggesting an explicit awareness of itself or oneself as a member of its category; cleverly self-referential. This is Facebook's new name and is a still-emerging term.
Past Words of the Year include:
2020 - Pandemic; 2019 - They; 2018 - Justice; 2017 - Feminism; 2016 - Surreal; 2015 -ism; 2014 - Culture; 2013 - Science; 2012 - Socialism; 2011 - Pragmatic; 2010 - Austerity; 2009 - Admonish; 2008 - Bailout.
Isn't language interesting?
8 comments:
All some good ones but I think vaccine makes a lot of sense!
Is sure is interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Vireya has left a new comment on your post "Merriam Webster's Word of the Year 2021":
Two Australian dictionaries chose "strollout" as their word of the year. It is related to vaccine, in that it described our government's "not a race" attitude to getting everyone vaccinated
Some of those words I would have thought would have been in the dictionary already. Interesting to read.
For a non-native speaker like me, many English words are unfamiliar and are must 'look-ups'.
Vaccine - All are aware of this word now. Interesting post.
Pamela: Very interesting words.
Catherine
Is the word of the year just the one that's looked up the most, or do they actively choose it? Either way, I'm nor surprised 'vaccine' was it!
Post a Comment