(Fox News) Merriam-Webster on Monday announced “pandemic” as its word of year.
“That probably isn’t a big shock,” Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster, told The Associated Press
In its noun form, pandemic is defined by the dictionary as an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affects a significant proportion of the population.
“Often the big news story has a technical word that’s associated with it and in this case, the word pandemic is not just technical but has become general. It’s probably the word by which we’ll refer to this period in the future,” Sokolowski, a lexicographer, told the outlet.