Ten Words That Coronavirus Has Added To The Dictionary
And a few predictions for phrases that could be added soon
This year’s Coronavirus pandemic has brought a whole new set of phrases into our everyday language —such as Covid-19, contact tracing, self-isolation — and many of those are now so commonplace that they’ve made it into the dictionary.
Dictionaries add hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of new words each year. Often those new words have already been around for some time, but their increased frequency of use means they earn a place in the hallowed pages of a dictionary.
For example, some of the words Miriam-Webster have added to their dictionary so far in 2020 include ‘fan art’ (artwork created by fans and based on popular fiction), ‘dark web’ (web pages that require special access and ensure anonymity for its users) and ‘zonkey’ (a zebra-donkey hybrid). I’m personally planning to use that last one a lot more frequently from now on!
The outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 led to the creation of many new terms, and the repurposing of some older phrases, to help us describe, understand and cope with what has happened.
