Merriam-Webster just chose pandemic as the 2020 Word of the Year, and it is such an obvious choice that Dictionary.com agrees.
The online dictionary chose the word because it “profoundly impacted every sector of society and defined the context for all the many other consequential events of the year.” They also note, “just as the pandemic upended life in 2020, it also reshaped language, requiring a new vocabulary for a new reality.”
As for how they define the word, Dictionary.com says a pandemic is "a disease prevalent throughout an entire country, continent or the whole world." They add that on March 11th, when the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, searches for the word jumped 13,500%.
Other words that saw huge jumps in 2020 include: asymptomatic, CDC, coronavirus, furlough, nonessential, quarantine, and sanitizer, and while quarantine went on searches for words like coronababy, drive-by birthday, quaranteam, maskne, and Zoom also jumped.
The site also revealed a list of words that trended each month throughout 2020. They include:
- January – pettifogging
- February – acquit
- March – quarantine
- April – social distancing
- May – conspiracy theory
- June – defund
- July – Karen
- August – doomscrolling
- September – absentee vote
- October – superspreader
- November – unprecedented
Read more --> Dictionary.com
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