Oxford English Dictionary won't choose a word of the year for 2020

The Oxford English Dictionary editors have decided not to declare a word of the year for 2020.

Instead, the team declared that 2020 has been “a year which cannot be neatly accommodated in one single word,” according to the Guardian.

Many of the contenders, but not all, related to the coronavirus outbreak, including “pandemic” (a 57,000 percent increase), “following the science” (a 1,000 percent increase), “unmute” (500 percent), and “remote” (300 percent).

Others referred back to major political and social movements: “mail-in” went up 3,000 percent; “QAnon,” 5,700 percent.

The dictionary did, however, release the Oxford Languages Words of an Unprecedented Year report on all the new or newly popular words in our shared vocabulary. 

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