Lockdown Named 2020’s Word of the Year by Collins Dictionary

Lockdown, the noun that has come to define so many lives across the world in 2020, has been named word of the year by Collins Dictionary. Lockdown is defined by Collins as “the imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction, and access to public spaces”. The 4.5-billion-word Collins Corpus, which contains written material from websites, books and newspapers, as well as spoken material from radio, television and conversations, registered a 6,000% increase in (1) usage. In 2019, there were 4,000 recorded instances of lockdown being used. In 2020, this had risen to more than a quarter of a million.

“Language is a reflection of the world around us and 2020 has been dominated by the global pandemic,” says Collins language content consultant Helen Newstead. “We have chosen lockdown as (2) word of the year because it encapsulates the shared experience of billions of people who have had to restrict (3) daily lives in order to contain the virus. Lockdown has affected the way we work, study, shop, and socialise. It is not a word of the year to celebrate, but it is, perhaps, one that sums up the year for most of the world.”

Other pandemic-related words such as coronavirus, social distancing and key worker were on the dictionary’s list of the top 10 words. However, the coronavirus crisis didn’t completely dominate this year’s vocabulary: words like “Megxit,” a term to describe Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepping back as senior members of the royal family, also made the shortlist along with “TikToker” (a person who regularly shares or appears in videos on TikTok), and “BLM.” The abbreviation BLM, for Black Lives Matter is defined by Collins as “a movement that campaigns against racially motivated violence and oppression”, it registered a 581% increase in usage.

Adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/10/lockdown-named-word-of-the-year-by-collins-dictionary