Oxford Dictionary Picks 2021 Word of the Year. It Is Linked to Vaccines

Vax is used to refer to a vaccine or the process of vaccination.

Lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) have chosen “vax” as the word of 2021. In English, this abbreviation is used to refer to a vaccine or the process of vaccination. 

Why “vax” specifically

In 2021, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the frequency of words related to vaccines increased. Words such as double-vaxxed (twice vaccinated), unvaxxed (unvaccinated) and antivaxxer (anti-vaccine campaigner) are being used more and more often.

OED senior editor Fiona McPherson said the choice of “vax” was obvious, as it had the “most striking impact.” 

Fiona McPherson
senior editor of the Oxford English Dictionary

The word appeared at least in the 1980s, but according to our data, it was rarely used before this year. If you add to this its versatility in forming other words —  vaxxie, vax-a-thon, vaxinista — it became clear that vax stands out from the crowd. 

Two spellings of the word in English are considered acceptable —  vax and vaxx, but the form with a single “x” is more common. 

What this word means

The Oxford Dictionary definition of vax:

• vax (noun) — a vaccine or vaccination
• vax (verb) — to give someone a vaccine in order to create immunity against a disease; to vaccinate
  
• vaxxie (noun) — a photo of yourself taken during, immediately before or after vaccination, especially against coronavirus, usually posted on social media; a vaccination selfie
  
• anti-vax (adjective) — anti-vaccination, against vaccination
  
• antivaxxer (noun) — an anti-vaccine campaigner; a person who opposes vaccination
  
• double-vaxxed (participle) — twice vaccinated; someone who has received two doses of a vaccine
  

In 2021, the use of the word “pandemic” also increased by more than 57,000%. The Oxford Dictionary and Collins Dictionary choose their word of the year annually. In 2020, Collins chose lockdown as its word. 

The Oxford Dictionary decided that it had been an unprecedented year with too many contenders, so it expanded its nomination to cover several new key words, in particular lockdown, bushfires (wildfires), COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, WFH (working from home), keyworkers (essential workers) and furlough (unpaid leave). 

In 2019, the word of the year was the phrase climate emergency (a climate emergency), and in 2018 it was toxic (poisonous, toxic). At the same time, Collins chose the phrase climate strike (climate strike) as its 2019 word of the year, which gained fame thanks to activist Greta Thunberg. 

All these words come from the Latin word vacca, meaning “cow.” According to OED data, this is connected to the pioneering work of English physician and scientist Edward Jenner on vaccination against smallpox using cowpox — a mild infection that occurs in cows — in the late 1790s and early 1800s. 

The Oxford Dictionary notes that its corpus (a language resource) collects news content that is updated every day and contains more than 14.5 billion words, which lexicographers search and analyze.