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The 2020 prize for Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year went to an apparent alternative: pandemic.
The time period had probably the most on-line dictionary lookups of any phrase, Merriam-Webster stated on its web site, after a yr during which no less than 1.four million individuals globally have died from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Sometimes a single word defines an era, and it’s fitting that in this exceptional – and exceptionally difficult – year, a single word came immediately to the fore,” the dictionary writer stated.
Pandemic is outlined as “an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affects a significant proportion of the population,” in accordance with Merriam-Webster.com.
The phrase’s Greek roots are “pan,” which means all or each and “demos,” which means individuals, Merriam-Webster stated.
Dictionary lookups skyrocketed on March 11 when the World Health Organization formally labeled COVID-19 a pandemic.
The phrase “saw the single largest spike in dictionary traffic in 2020, showing an increase of 115,806% over lookups on that day in 2019,” stated the corporate, based in 1831.
Last yr’s winner was “they” as used to explain somebody who doesn’t determine as male nor feminine. That follows winners “justice” in 2018, “feminism” in 2017 and “surreal” in 2016.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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