Every year, vaunted English language dictionaries choose their word of the year and they tend to sum up the world in just one word (and, occasionally, two).
- In 2020, Collins English Dictionary chose ‘lockdown’. By contrast, in 2019, it was ‘climate strike’.
- The Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English chose ‘cancel culture’ in 2019 and ‘doomscrolling’ in 2020.
- American dictionary Merriam-Webster had ‘they’ as its word of the year in 2019 and ‘pandemic’ in 2020. Its word of the year 2021? ‘Vaccine’.
- Oxford English Dictionary didn’t choose a word for 2020, but for 2021 it’s ‘vax’.
There’s even a word of the decade, chosen by the American Dialect Society. To give you an idea of this, the 1990s word was ‘web’, the 2000s word was ‘google’, used as a verb, and ‘they’, used as a pronoun for the 2010s.
No prizes for guessing what will end up being the word of the 2020s.
Image courtesy of Library
