The Dictionary.com Word Of The Year For 2020 Is … November 30, 2020 New Language Video 2020 Trends By Month Previous Winners pandemic: life upended, language transformed 2020 has been, well, a lot. At Dictionary.com, the task of choosing a single word to sum up 2020—a year roiled by a public health crisis, an economic downturn, racial injustice, climate disaster, political division, and rampant disinformation—was a challenging and humbling one. But at the same time, our choice was overwhelmingly clear. From our perspective as documenters of the English language, one word kept running through the profound and manifold ways our lives have been upended—and our language so rapidly transformed—in this unprecedented year. That word is pandemic, our 2020 Word of the Year. Can you guess which word won our People’s Choice 2020 Word of the Year contest? How pandemic defined 2020 As most of us now know painfully well, a pandemic is defined as “a disease prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world.” And yet, the loss of life and livelihood caused by the COVID-19 pandemic defies definition. With over 60 million confirmed cases, the pandemic has claimed over one million lives across the globe and is still rising to new peaks. The pandemic has wreaked social and economic disruption on a historic scale and scope, globally impacting every sector of society—not to mention its emotional and psychological toll. All other events for most of 2020, from the protests for racial justice to a heated presidential election, were shaped by the pandemic. Despite its hardships, the pandemic inspired the best of our humanity: resilience and resourcefulness in the face of struggle. And we thought 2019 was an existential year … This upheaval was reflected in our language, notably in the word pandemic itself. On March 11, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the first caused by a coronavirus. “Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom observed of this momentous announcement. That day, when COVID-19 had then only taken 4,291 lives around the world, searches for pandemic skyrocketed 13,575% on Dictionary.com compared to 2019. Pandemic joined a cluster of other terms that users searched in massive numbers, whether to learn an unfamiliar word used during a government briefing or to process the swirl of media headlines: asymptomatic, CDC, coronavirus, furlough, nonessential, quarantine, and sanitizer, to spotlight a few. But of all these many queries, search volume for pandemic sustained the highest levels on site over the course of 2020, averaging a 1000% increase, month over month, relative to previous years. Because of its ubiquity as the defining context of 2020, it remained in the top 10% of all lookups for much of the year since. At the start of 2020, it was unthinkable that parents would need to have a serious conversation about the word pandemic—a word which may have previously felt like a term from the history books—to their children around the dinner table. It was unfathomable that, by the year’s end, the word pandemic would become part of our everyday speech to the point of overfamiliarity, even fatigue. How rare it is for the origin of a word—with pandemic ultimately coming from the Greek pân, “all,” and dêmos, “people”—to prove so literal. Without a doubt, the pandemic affected all of us, all over the world, in nearly all aspects of our lives. How pandemic changed the dictionary The pandemic defined 2020, and it will define the years to come. It is a consequential word for a consequential year. As the pandemic upended life in 2020, it also dramatically reshaped our language, requiring a whole new vocabulary for talking about our new reality. It defined much of the work we did at Dictionary.com this year in order to meet the urgent need for information and explanation amid a fast-changing crisis. In a period of just a few weeks in the spring, the pandemic introduced a host of new and newly prominent words that, normally, only public health professionals knew and used. Specialized lingo, spanning topics from epidemiology to social behavior, formed a shared—and ever-expanding—glossary for daily life. Besides more obvious items like COVID-19 and coronavirus, highlights include: asymptomatic contact tracing flatten the curve fomites frontliner furlough herd immunity hydroxychloroquine infodemic lockdown long-hauler essential/nonessential PPE pod quarantine shelter in place social distancing superspreader twindemic viral load Supported by efforts of our editors to bring clarity and context to these terms and trends in articles and other content, our lexicographers updated our dictionary—twice this year—to document this extensive language change. We cannot overstate how rare it is for so many entries, so abruptly, to be added to the dictionary. The resilience and resourcefulness people confronted the pandemic with also manifested itself in tremendous linguistic creativity. Throughout 2020, our team has been tracking a growing body of so-called coronacoinages that have given expression—and have offered some relief from tragedy, some connection in isolation—to the lived experience of a surreal year. In addition to shortened forms like rona and quar, we saw a slew of puns, blends, novel expressions, and other new words for a new normal. Corona (from coronavirus) and Zoom (from a leading video communication platform) were especially productive in forming neologisms. anti-masker bubble the Before Times cluttercore coronababy coronacation coronacoaster coronacut coronasomnia COVID-10 covidiot drive-by birthday drive-in rally maskne quarantini quaranteam Zoom-bombing Zoom fatigue Zoom mom Zoom town This outbreak of new language—matched by a surge of searches for these terms on site—is unlike anything we’ve ever seen at Dictionary.com. It takes an event on the order of a pandemic to generate such innovation. And on its own, this evolving vernacular serves as a striking timeline of life under COVID-19. WATCH: Why Dictionary.com Chose This Word To Describe 2020 Pandemic: the defining context for 2020 While pandemic rose to the top of the many words that drove both the search and lexicographical activity on Dictionary.com this year, 2020 barraged us, month after month, with unprecedented occurrences. The experience of such a welter of uncertainty and change—even as many of us were hunkered down at home—was jolting and disorienting. President Donald Trump was acquitted of impeachment charges. After the killing of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter sparked a powerful reckoning with racism. Record wildfires ravaged the West Coast along with other extreme climate episodes. Americans voted, early and by mail like never before, in an impassioned presidential election. This year was a lot to handle, and as our data shows, our users, in one form or another, tried to do so by looking up the terms surrounding these major events on our site in significant numbers. Still, all of this took place in the context of—on account of, in spite of, in a now faraway-seeming world prior to—the COVID-19 pandemic. Everything from news headlines to advertisements to casual speech registered the totality of the pandemic by framing all of the events in terms of before, during, amid, and since the pandemic. We applied pandemic as a modifier in novel ways: pandemic teaching, pandemic fashion, pandemic baking, or pandemic depression, for instance, characterize how these activities altered during life in the time of COVID-19. Year in Review: 2020 Trends By Month To acknowledge the multitude of other terms that directed our users’ interests and our work as a dictionary, we think it’s worth reviewing notable words that spiked or spoke to the unrest and transformation of this indelible year. But in revisiting all these terms, it’s unmistakable that the COVID-19 pandemic was the turning point and throughline for all the events of the entire year. January pettifogging See definition With such a whirlwind of news in 2020, it’s easy to forget that the year opened with a historic episode all its own: the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. more Searches related to Trump’s impeachment led lookups on our site in January, but none was more dominant than pettifogging. On January 22, one day after the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the U.S., Chief Justice John Roberts referenced this rare, unusual term when he admonished officials while presiding over the trial. Searches for pettifogging soared 62,600% on January 22, climbing to over 60 times its previous monthly average. Some serious synonyms for pettifogging await on Thesaurus.com. less February acquit See definition The impeachment trial of President Trump continued to top trends in February. On February 5, the same day a cruise ship quarantined off Japan in one of the then-largest outbreaks outside China, the Senate voted along party lines to acquit Trump of the charges against him. more Searches for acquit jumped over 3,600% that day alone and reached five times its previous monthly average. Acquire other words for acquit on Thesaurus.com. less March quarantine See definition In March, the enormity of the coronavirus became real. The COVID-19 epidemic precipitated into a true pandemic. Schools, business, cities, even entire countries locked down. Everyday life was forced into quarantine. more By the end of this critical month, searches for quarantine had risen 40 times their previous average. They peaked at a 5,600% increase on March 20, when Mayor Bill de Blasio called New York City “the epicenter of the crisis” with over 15,000 cases. Early on, quarantine was especially used in its technical sense of “a strict isolation imposed to prevent the spread of a disease,” but as the crisis unfolded, it extended as a general term for staying at home. Also noteworthy are self-quarantine and the many slang inventions based on quarantine. Quarantine was named the first-ever Word of the Year by our multi-language sister site, Lexico. Find out why—and learn its counterpart in Spanish while you do. less April social distancing See definition No other term quite so specifically captures how the pandemic transformed life and language in 2020 than social distancing. more In the past 20 years, social distancing was scientific jargon, but 2020 had us all talking like Dr. Fauci. The term was suddenly everywhere, from store signage requiring us to social distance to text messages about socially distanced hangouts. These derived forms reveal how quickly we adapted to social distancing in our behavior—and grammar. As recorded at social distance, searches for the term shot up 19,500% in April. Expanded senses at social distance and a separate entry for social distancing were among the first and chief additions our lexicographers made in our coronavirus update that month. less May conspiracy theory See definition In a year when facts about COVID-19 had life-and-death consequences, 2020 also saw the troubling spread of conspiracy theories—including from the highest office in the land. That we frame such misinformation and disinformation in viral metaphors, like infodemic, has never been more apt and resonant. more On May 7, social media companies removed a video called Plandemic from their platforms. The video pushes many baseless and dangerous falsehoods and conspiracy theories about various aspects of the pandemic. That day, searches for conspiracy theory on our site were vaulted up 2,600%, hitting 13 times their previous average by month’s end. Conspiracy theories continued to figure prominently in 2020, including the rise of the online conspiracy theory of QAnon and false information promoted by President Donald Trump on the legitimacy of mail-in voting and U.S. elections. Get the facts with our articles on disinformation and QAnon. less June defund See definition The tragic death of George Floyd on May 25 marked another inflection point in 2020. By June, for millions of people across the globe, the urgent need for change transcended the risks of mass gatherings during a pandemic—a need perhaps intensified by the hardships of COVID-19, which have disproportionately hurt people of color. Demonstrators took their face masks to the streets around the world to protest against racism and police brutality against Black people. more While some erupted into violent clashes with police and counter-protestors, demonstrations were largely safe and peaceful, and spurred a reckoning with deep-seated racial inequality in the U.S. All of this flux was reflected in search data and user interest on Dictionary.com. As in March when the pandemic set in, we saw a cluster of terms trend or gain traction on site surrounding various aspects of the protests, including: antebellum, antiracism, Black Lives Matter, cancel culture, fascism, looting, martial law, systemic, thug, redskin, virtue signaling, and white fragility. Notable in this set was defund, whose use in the slogan Defund the Police became a rallying cry for many protestors—and a lightning rod for backlash against them. As the meaning and implications of defund were debated in the public discourse, searches for defund in June surged 1,500 times their previously monthly average. The largest spike, an astronomical 160,000% increase compared to 2019, occurred on June 9 with headlines that both President Trump and President-elect Joe Biden opposed defunding the police. Reflect on the many other ways the George Floyd Protests powerfully changed search trends on Dictionary.com. less July Karen See definition In 2020, the slang insult Karen went from an internet meme to a cultural touchstone of the year. By July, Karen had logged over two million views on our site following a series of viral videos showing white women, popularly labeled Karens, flouting pandemic safety regulations or calling the police on Black people. more One of the most telling signs of the ascendancy of this slang term came on July 16, when Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany a Karen after the secretary called the mayor “derelict” for her response to protests in her city. Hey, Karen. Watch your mouth. pic.twitter.com/zhjRyokKD5 — Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) July 16, 2020 From a lexical perspective, particularly noteworthy about Karen is how swiftly and widely—though not uncontentiously—the term was adopted into the mainstream vernacular as a way to call out white privilege. We’re continuing to monitor this shifting term, however, especially with regards to concerns about its sexism. Do you know the meaning of other slang standouts in 2020, such as simp and stonks? less August doomscrolling See definition One of the most relatable experiences in 2020 established its popular name this year: doomscrolling, a term popularized by journalist Karen Ho for the act of compulsively checking social media for more bad news. more While we had been watching doomscrolling since the spring in the context of COVID-19, the term really asserted its staying power in the lexicon in August as people gawked at image after image of the apocalyptically orange skies over the Bay Area due to another year of record-breaking, climate-intensified wildfires in the region. Other extreme weather in 2020 included a hyperactive hurricane season in the Atlantic and a devastating derecho in the Midwest. Searches for derecho swelled over 33,000% on August 11 after the severe windstorm rocked parts of Iowa and Illinois. less September absentee vote See definition The 2020 presidential election didn’t just unfold during the pandemic. The pandemic also shook up the mechanics of democracy, restructuring campaigns, conventions, debates, and voting. more To ensure people could vote safely amid a pandemic, many states broadened qualifications around absentee voting. Meanwhile, President Trump spread false information about mail-in voting and cast doubt on election integrity at the same time the Postal Service faced delivery days. Starting as early as mid-September in several states, record numbers of people—with many donning face masks to stand in long, socially distanced lines—voted early or cast in-person absentee ballots. As voting in this passionate election got underway, lookups leaped for absentee vote, increasing 7,700% on September 22. And just four days earlier on September 18, the country was rattled by the death of influential and iconic Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The political fallout of her passing sent searches for court packing up 56,700% on September 30, and they stayed high into early October. Civics 101: What is the difference between absentee voting and mail-voting? less October superspreader See definition In October, COVID-19 cases hit new highs in the U.S. as the country headed into what many are calling the long, pandemic winter. And major European countries imposed new lockdowns as they confronted a second wave. more The month opened with staggering news: President Trump tested positive for the coronavirus. More positive diagnoses in Trump’s inner circle were linked to a White House ceremony announcing the president’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. With attendees packed together and many without masks, the ceremony was described as a superspreader event. The term superspreader became increasingly prevalent as the month went on as easing restrictions, students on campus, a higher tolerance for risk in the populace, and pandemic fatigue created more opportunities for the disease to spread. Untrue and misleading statements from Trump in the runup to Election Day also led some critics and political observers to designate him a metaphorical superspreader of falsehoods. Boosted by growing user interest in the term, the prominence of superspreader, both literally and figuratively, prompted our editors to prioritize the word as a part of a second batch of COVID-19 updates to Dictionary.com this year. Some other new entries include antiviral, coronavirologist, touchless, and remdesivir, among many more, indicating just how much the pandemic continues to shape life and language. less November unprecedented See definition Unprecedented times, unprecedented circumstances, unprecedented challenges—in 2020, there’s no question the word unprecedented saw unprecedented use. Far and away, this adjective, meaning “never before known or experienced,” burgeoned in common parlance to characterize the many extraordinary events of the year. more Dictionary.com observed a huge wave of interest for the word unprecedented from March to June, corresponding with the first wave of the pandemic across the globe. Searches crested at nearly 800% their 2019 levels in the last week of March as lockdowns went into force across many U.S. states, and remained considerably above average through much of the year. While a phrase like in these precedented times may have become clichéd by this time, the word unprecedented still proved more relevant than ever in November: Election Day turned into Election Week, and the U.S. saw unprecedented voter turnout for Election Day at the same time it tallied an unprecedented number of cases of COVID-19. Kamala Harris achieved the unprecedented, the first female, first Black, and first South Asian to be declared Vice President-elect—even as President Trump, in an unprecedented move in modern history, refused to acknowledge the election results. On November 9, Pfizer announced 90% effectiveness for a COVID-19 vaccine in early results, a promising sign in an effort unprecedented in its speed and scale. All this in just one week? That alone warrants the description as unprecedented. Looking for other ways to say unprecedented? Our Synonym of the Day has you covered. less December People's Choice We asked you to submit your choice for the word you think best sums up 2020—and you answered. Out of thousands of compelling submissions, one word rose to top. What was crowned the People’s Choice 2020 Word of the Year? Past Dictionary.com Words of the Year existential 2019 misinformation 2018 complicit 2017 xenophobia 2016 identity 2015 exposure 2014 privacy 2013 bluster 2012 tergiversate 2011 change 2010