Pandemic is the Merriam-Webster Word of the Year

From Merriam-Webster:

Based upon a statistical analysis of words that are looked up in extremely high numbers in our online dictionary while also showing a significant year-over-year increase in traffic, Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2020 is pandemic.

The first big spike in dictionary lookups for pandemic took place on February 3rd, the same day that the first COVID-19 patient in the U.S. was released from a Seattle hospital. That day, pandemic was looked up 1,621% more than it had been a year previous, but close inspection of the dictionary data shows that searches for the word had begun to tick up consistently starting on January 20th, the date of the first positive case in the U.S.

Other words of 2020 include:

• Defund
• Mamba
• Kraken
• Schadenfreude
• Irregardless
• Malarkey

Read the Complete 2020 Word of the Year Post from Merriam-Webster

Filed under: Data Files, News