The word with the most number of online dictionary look upswas what has caused havoc the world over this year. The obvious word that springs to everybody’s minds is the word – pandemic! This was announced by Merriam Webster on their website. This word emerged as the most looked up dictionary word having caused the death of more than 1.4 million people worldwide.
The dictionary publisher in existence since 1828 mentioned that this word had defined an era and was the most obvious choice for the word of the year. The word pandemic was listed as meaning the outbreak of a disease over a large geographic area including multiple countries or continents and which significantly affects a large proportion of the population. Merriam Webster further went on to add that this word had its roots in Greece. The word “pan” means every or all and “demos” means people.
After the WHO (World Health organisation) labelled COVI D– 19 a pandemic, on March 11, this year the online dictionary searches went up to a record high. The single largest high in online dictionary searches as compared to the same day in 2019 was recorded. An increase of 115,806 % was registered.
In the list of winners year wise of words, last year it was the word “they” this was a word used in reference to anybody who is neither male nor female. In 2018, it was the word “justice “in 2017 it was “feminism” and in 2016 it was the word “surreal.”
It was also noted that very rarely has a word like COVID- 19 moved from a medical professionals vocabulary to that of the general public, as this word. They added it in a special release of new words in March. This word gained the distinction of being the fastest from its coinage to inclusion in a record time of only 34 days
