‘Pandemic’ chosen as Word of the Year 2020 by Dictionary.com

The word “pandemic” was named Word of the Year 2020 by Dictionary.com as the number of searches for the word skyrocketed that year.

The word “pandemic” was voted Word of the Year 2020 by Dictionary.com.

Dictionary.com made “Pandemic” the Word of the Year 2020 due to its frequent use since the beginning of the year as the Covid-19 pandemic spread rapidly around the world. During the Covid-19 lockdown, searches for “pandemic” on dictionary.com skyrocketed.

Dictionary.com defines the word pandemic as “a disease that is common to an entire country, continent, or around the world”. After the death observed worldwide and the reporting of millions of cases, the word “pandemic” has become a part of everyone’s life.

When the number of Covid-19 cases exceeded 60 million and claimed nearly 1.5 million lives worldwide, searches for the word “pandemic” on Dictionary.com rose 13,575 percent compared to 2019.

Amid the confusion and uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 lockdown, searches for “pandemic” grew over 1000 percent each month in 2020 and have remained in the top 10 percent of all searches for much of the year since then.

Most searched words on Dictionary.com

As the number of coronavirus cases increased worldwide, the word “pandemic” became one of the most searched for words worldwide when parents and teachers decided to educate children about the phenomenon. Word pandemic aside, here are some of the most searched for words on Dictionary.com this year.

• Asymptomatic
• vacation
• Frontliner
• Coronavirus
• Hydroxychloroquine
• quarantine
• Curfew
• PPE
• Social distancing
• Not essential

How “Pandemic” became the word of the year 2020

The word “pandemic” became an important part of the lives of all people around the world as almost the entire world was locked down to reduce the risk of citizens getting infected. Almost all of a normal person’s daily activities have been changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

As the functioning of the normal man was compromised due to the pandemic, the number of searches for the word, which was probably only used in history books before 2020, increased significantly this year due to its context.

The word has changed our language dramatically and requires a whole new vocabulary to speak about our new reality. Aside from more obvious terms like Covid-19 and Coronavirus, the pandemic became Word of the Year 2020 for Dictionary.com.

Read: ‘Lockdown’ was voted Word of the Year 2020 by the Collins Dictionary

Read: 5 Ways To Improve Your English Vocabulary At Home During Covid-19 Lockdown