Word of the year: vax

English gets vaxxed - 3rd January 2022

Lexicographers from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) have proclaimed 'vax' to be their word of the year. Words associated with vaccines spiked in frequency in 2021 as a direct result of Covid-19, with others such as 'unvaxxed' and 'anti-vaxxer' seeing a massive surge in usage. Along with this trend, use of the word 'pandemic', for example, leapt up by more than 57,000 percent compared with previous years.

Senior editor of the OED Fiona McPherson stated that vax was the clear winner as it has made "the most striking impact". She also commented that the word “goes back at least to the 1980s, but according to our corpus it was rarely used until this year. When you add to that its versatility in forming other words – ‘vaxxie’, ‘vax-a-thon’, ‘vaxinista’ – it became clear that vax was the standout in the crowd."

Despite the fact that 'vax' and 'vaxx' are equally accepted as spellings, the former is considerably higher frequency. The dictionary's definitions for 'vax' comprise the dual noun forms of vaccine or vaccination in addition to the verb, alongside the terms 'anti-vax' and 'anti-vaxxer', while the phrase 'double-vaxxed' also makes an appearance.

Both Oxford Languages and Collins select their word of the year annually and, the previous year, Collins plumped for another coronavirus term, 'lockdown'. However, in recognition of the fact that these are unprecedented times, Oxford widened the scope of the award to encompass a variety of significant original vocabulary items like ‘lockdown’, ‘bushfires’, ‘WFH’ (working from home), ‘Black Lives Matter’, ‘keyworkers’ and ‘furlough’.

Initial records for 'vax' were first noted in English as early as 1799, with 'vaccinate' and 'vaccination' popping up the ensuing year. All of these words originate from the Latin word ‘vacca’, meaning cow. According to the OED, this is on account of English physician and scientist Edward Jenner's pioneering work in the late 1790s and early 1800s on the vaccination against smallpox, via cowpox, a mild infection that afflicts cows.

Oxford Languages explains that its corpus samples, comprising in excess of 14.5 billion words garnered from a variety of news outlets, are compiled regularly and exploited for research by lexicographers.