The Merriam-Webster dictionary picked "pandemic" as its word of the year on Monday, based on the number of lookups on its website
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th November, 2020) The Merriam-Webster dictionary picked "pandemic" as its word of the year on Monday, based on the number of lookups on its website.
"Based upon a statistical analysis of words that are looked up in extremely high numbers in our online dictionary ... Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2020 is pandemic," the announcement read.
The word was coined from the Greek roots "pan," which stands for "all," and "demos," which means "people." It began trending in January, when the United States recorded its first positive case of coronavirus, and was searched 1,621 percent more than a year before in February. The day the World Health Organization declared the new disease a pandemic on March 11 searches spiked 115,806 percent.
The shortlist of most prominent 2020 words also includes "coronavirus," "quarantine" and "asymptomatic." The dictionary said it was striking that "pandemic" stayed near the top of its lookup chart for the past ten months, while searches for other related terms, such as coronavirus, had waned.
