WASHINGTON: From questions over mandates to concerns over global distribution, Merriam-Webster dictionary has declared an omnipresent truth as its 2021 word of the year: vaccine.
At Merriam-Webster, lookups for “vaccine” increased 601 per cent over 2020, when the first US shot was administered in New York in December after quick development, and months of speculation and discussion over efficacy.
Compared to 2019, when there was little urgency or chatter about vaccines, Merriam-Webster logged an increase of 1,048pc in lookups this year. Debates over inequitable distribution, vaccine mandates and boosters kept interest high, Sokolowski said. So did vaccine hesitancy and friction over vaccine passports.
“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.
“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,” he added.
Earlier this month, lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary chose “vax” as their word of the year, due to an explosion in the use of related terms such as “vaxxed” and “anti-vaxxer”.
It comes after Merriam-Webster chose “pandemic” as tops in lookups last year on its online site. “The pandemic was the gun going off and now we have the aftereffects,” Sokolowski said.
First known use of vaccine
The word “vaccine” wasn’t birthed in a day, or due to a single pandemic. The first known use stretches back to 1882 but references pop up earlier related to fluid from cowpox pustules used in inoculations, Sokolowski said.
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.
Earlier 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.
