Merriam-Webster chose “Vaccine” as the 2021 Word of the Year after the website recorded a 601 percent increase in lookups, since the first ever COVID-19 shot was administered in the US.
Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large, Peter Sokolowski, told The Associated Press “This was a word that was extremely high in our data every single day in 2021.”
“It really represents two different stories. One is the science story, which is this remarkable speed with which the vaccines were developed. But there’s also the debates regarding policy, politics and political affiliation. It’s one word that carries these two huge stories.”
– Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large, Peter Sokolowski
The announcement came after the Oxford English Dictionary announced “vax” as their word of the year. It also comes after Merriam-Webster chose “pandemic” as 2020’s word of the year, which Sokolowski described as “The pandemic was the gun going off and now we have the aftereffects.”
Unlike most dictionary companies, Merriam-Webster did not make the decision using a committee, instead it based the choice on lookup data. The team looked over their figures and trends, excluded evergreen terms and chose a winner.
History Behind the Word
The first known use of the word “vaccine” goes back to 1882 with references popping up even earlier in relation to fluid from cowpox pustules used in inoculations, according to Sokolowski.
The term was borrowed from the New Latin word “vaccina,” which goes back to Latin’s feminine “vaccinus,” which means “of or from a cow,” according to Merriam-Webster.
As for “Inoculation,” the term is older dating back to 1714, which refers to the act of injecting an “inoculum.”
Source: Today
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