He wrote that it “struck a chord in a pandemic-ravaged year. The AP’s film writer Jake Coyle called the indie success “a plain-spoken meditation on solitude, grief and grit. Zhao became the first woman of color to win best director. NOMAD: The word had its moment with the 2020 release of the film “Nomadland.” It went on to win three Oscars in April 2021, including best picture, director (Chloé Zhao) and actress (Frances McDormand). He was one of 28,000 K-12 students to submit entries. He participated in an essay contest organized by NASA. The name was thought up by Alexander Mather, a 14-year-old seventh-grader at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. “Perseverance is the most sophisticated rover NASA has ever sent to the Red Planet, with a name that embodies NASA’s passion, and our nation’s capability, to take on and overcome challenges,” the space agency said. PERSEVERANCE: It’s the name of NASA’s latest Mars rover. “Many people asked, what is infrastructure if it’s not made out of steel or concrete? Infrastructure, in Latin, means underneath the structure,” he said. When Biden proposed help with broadband access, eldercare and preschool, conversation changed from not only roads and bridges but “figurative infrastructure,” Sokolowski said. INFRASTRUCTURE: President Joe Biden was able to deliver what Trump often spoke of but never achieved: A bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law. Searches for the word increased by 61,000% over 2020, Sokolowksi said. Some of Trump’s allies have resisted subpoenas, including Steve Bannon. Arrests continue, as do congressional hearings over the attack by supporters of President Donald Trump. INSURRECTION: Interest was driven by the deadly Jan. Among its runners-up in the word biography of 2021: The company has been declaring a word of the year since 2008. While other dictionary companies choose words of the year by committee, Merriam-Webster bases its selection on lookup data, paying close attention to spikes and, more recently, year-over-year increases in searches after weeding out evergreens.
Inoculation, on the other hand, dates to 1714, in one sense referring to the act of injecting an “inoculum.”Įarlier this year, Merriam-Webster added to its online entry for “vaccine” to cover all the talk of mRNA vaccines, or messenger vaccines such as those for COVID-19 developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. It was borrowed from the New Latin “vaccina,” which goes back to Latin’s feminine “vaccinus,” meaning “of or from a cow.” The Latin for cow is “vacca,” a word that might be akin to the Sanskrit “vasa,” according to Merriam-Webster. The first known use stretches back to 1882 but references pop up earlier related to fluid from cowpox pustules used in inoculations, Sokolowski said. The word “vaccine” wasn’t birthed in a day, or due to a single pandemic. So did vaccine hesitancy and friction over vaccine passports. Debates over inequitable distribution, vaccine mandates and boosters kept interest high, Sokolowski said. The world’s first jab occurred earlier that month in the UK.Ĭompared to 2019, when there was little urgency or chatter about vaccines, Merriam-Webster logged an increase of 1,048% in lookups this year. shot was administered in New York in December after quick development, and months of speculation and discussion over efficacy.
“The pandemic was the gun going off and now we have the aftereffects,” Sokolowski said.Īt Merriam-Webster, lookups for “vaccine” increased 601% over 2020, when the first U.S. And it comes after Merriam-Webster chose “pandemic” as tops in lookups last year on its online site. The selection follows “vax” as word of the year from the folks who publish the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s one word that carries these two huge stories,” he said. But there’s also the debates regarding policy, politics and political affiliation. One is the science story, which is this remarkable speed with which the vaccines were developed. “It really represents two different stories. “This was a word that was extremely high in our data every single day in 2021,” Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large, told The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s announcement. NEW YORK (AP) - With an expanded definition to reflect the times, Merriam-Webster has declared an omnipresent truth as its 2021 word of the year: vaccine.
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