The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has named vax as the word of the year for 2021. Its usage was up 72 percent from the previous year.
Over the last 12 months, the dictionary has seen a significant increase in vaccine-related words and phrases. Thereby, including “double-vaxxed,” “unvaxxed,” and “anti-vaxxer.”
Another term that has grown in popularity is “vaxxie”. It refers to a photo shot of oneself after taking a vaccination, notably one against Covid-19.
“Vax” was a stark choice as word of the year for 2021, according to Fiona McPherson, the senior editor at OED. It has had “the most striking impact.”
“It goes back at least to the 1980s. But according to our corpus, it was rarely used until this year,” she added.
“When you add to that its versatility in forming other words – vaxxie, vax-a-thon, vaxinista – it became clear that vax was the standout in the crowd.”
Casper Grathwohl, the president of Oxford Languages, added: “When reviewing the language evidence, ‘vax’ stood out as an obvious choice. The word’s dramatic spike in usage caught our attention first.
“Then we ran the analysis and a story started to emerge, revealing how vax sat at the center of our preoccupations this year.”
OED’s word of the year : Vax
In an interview with The Guardian, Grathwohl remarked that people used the word in unexpected places, such as dating apps.
“The evidence was everywhere, from dating apps (vax 4 vax) and pent-up frustrations (hot vax summer) to academic calendars (vaxx to school) and bureaucratic operations (vax pass),” he said.
“In monopolizing our discourse, it’s clear the language of vaccines is changing how we talk – and think – about public health, community, and ourselves.”
In English, the word “vax” was first documented in 1799. While its derivatives vaccinate and vaccination was first recorded in 1800.
The OED’s word of the year is a phrase or term that the dictionary thinks, got a lot of attention in the last year.
“Every year, we debate candidates for word of the year and choose a winner that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of that particular year and to have lasting potential as a word of cultural significance,” it states on its website.
The OED chose a group of words as its word of the year in 2020. Then, noted that it was impossible to come up with a single word, to sum up, the previous 12 months.
Furlough, bushfires, WFH, lockdown, and moonshot were among the chosen words.