Morung Express News
What were the most searched words and definitions garnering most interest in 2021. While a single definitive ‘word’ cannot be given, we can get a clue on the spirit of the time by looking at the declaration of the annual ‘Words of the Year (WOTY) by leading dictionaries.
A compilation of the WOTY by four dictionaries informed that like 2020, word related with the COVID-19 continued piqued huge interest with Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Merriam-Webster choosing word related to the pandemic as their WOTY. The two others were technological, though, one also related to human response to challenges; say for instance, a pandemic.
OED’s WOTY: Vax
Vax has been chosen as the word of the year by lexicographers at the OED. According to OED, words related to vaccines have spiked in frequency in 2021 due to Covid, with double-vaxxed, unvaxxed and anti-vaxxer all seeing a surge in use.
“When our lexicographers began digging into our English language corpus data it quickly became apparent that vax was a particularly striking term,” it added.
According to BBC, vax and vaxx are both accepted spellings but the form with one x is more common.
OED's definition:
vax n. A vaccine or vaccination
vax v. Treat (someone) with a vaccine to produce immunity against a disease; vaccinate
vaxxie n. A photograph of oneself taken during or immediately before or after a vaccination, especially one against Covid-19, and typically shared on social media; a vaccination selfie
anti-vax adj. Opposed to vaccination
anti-vaxxer n. A person who is opposed to vaccination
double-vaxxed adj. Having received two doses of a vaccine
Merriam-Webster’s WOTY: Vaccine
Interest in the word has been high since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with much discussion of the funding, development, testing, and ultimate distribution of the vaccines occurring in 2020, but lookups for vaccine increased 601% year-over-year from 2020, Webster informed.
“The prominence of the word vaccine in our lives in this era becomes even more starkly clear when we compare 2021 to 2019, a period in which lookups for the word increased 1048%,” it said.
Vaccine was about much more than medicine in 2021.
For many, the word symbolized a possible return to the lives we led before the pandemic. But it was also at the center of debates about personal choice, political affiliation, professional regulations, healthcare inequality, and so much more, Webster added.
Webster’s definition:
1: a preparation that is administered (as by injection) to stimulate the body's immune response against a specific infectious agent or disease: such as
a: an antigenic preparation of a typically inactivated or attenuated pathogenic agent (such as a bacterium or virus) or one of its components or products (such as a protein or toxin)
b: a preparation of genetic material (such as a strand of synthesized messenger RNA) that is used by the cells of the body to produce an antigenic substance (such as a fragment of virus spike protein)
Cambridge Dictionary’s WOTY: perseverance
‘Perseverance’ was announced as Cambridge Dictionary’s (CD) WOTY 2021.
It’s a word that perfectly captures the undaunted will of people across the world to never give up, despite the many challenges of 2021. And, of course, the global interest in the NASA mission to Mars. Keep reading for practical resources to use in your classroom to teach about the Word of the Year 2021, it wrote in a blog.
Perseverance, defined by Cambridge Dictionary as continued effort to do or achieve something, even when this is difficult or takes a long time, has been looked up globally more than 243,000 times during 2021.
Just as it takes perseverance to land a rover on Mars, it takes perseverance to face the challenges and disruption to our lives from COVID-19, climate disasters, political instability and conflict. We appreciated that connection, and we think Cambridge Dictionary fans do, too, it added.
Collins Dictionary’s WOTY: ‘NFT’
The convergence of money and the internet leads us NFT, Collins Dictionary informed in a blog announcing its 2021 WOTY.
‘NFT’, the abbreviation of ‘non-fungible token’, the unique digital identifier that records ownership of a digital asset which has entered the mainstream and seen millions spent on the most sought-after images and videos, it said.
Collins’ definition:
Collins defined NFT as “a unique digital certificate, registered in a blockchain that is used to record ownership of an asset such as an artwork or a collectible”
In other words, it’s a chunk of digital data that records who a piece of digital work belongs to, it said.
“Unique” is important here — it’s a one-off, not “fungible” or replaceable by any other piece of data, it added.
