Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
Each year, Collins Dictionary of the English Language selects the Word Of The Year, referred to as the WOTY, an acronym that rhymes with “potty”. The Word Of The Year is selected, based on the significance of the recorded number of searches for a particular term, during the year. Unsurprisingly, this year’s WOTY is pandemic-related.
Indeed, Collins’ 2020 WOTY is Lockdown, a word that logged more than one quarter-million queries, compared to just 4000, in 2019. A word, according to Shariatmadari, whose usage has also squarely migrated, from the domain of incarceration to public health (Shariatmadari, Nov. 10, 2020).
Collins' 2020 definition of the term lockdown is the following:
Lockdown: the containment measure implemented by governments around the world to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
A second, 2020 definition of the term lockdown appears on the animated GIF for the winning WOTY, imported below, directly from the Collins website.
References
The Collins Word Of The Year 2020 is ….. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty
Shariatmadari, D. (Nov. 10, 2020) The year of the lockdown Collins Dictionary Language Lover’s Blog. https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/the-year-of-lockdown/
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