The Merriam-Webster dictionary has chosen the word 2020 – International

If you had to choose one word that stands out more than all the others in 2020, what would it be? The editors of the Merriam-Webster dictionary announced Monday that they have chosen “pandemic” as their word of the year, Business Insider reports.

“It’s probably not a big shock,” Peter Sokolowski, one of Merriam-Webster’s editors, told The Associated Press.

“Often the important news has a technical word associated with it and in this case the word pandemic is not only technical but has become general. It is probably the word with which we will refer to this period in the future,” he added.

The word went viral in March when the coronavirus crisis was listed as a pandemic, but it started searching Merriam-Webster.com in early January and then again in February when the first deaths in the states were recorded. United and the virus has spread among cruise ships.

The word “pandemic” dates back to the mid-1600s, used for the first time in a medical text in 1660, after the Middle Ages, when the bubonic plague devastated Europe.

More interesting to linguists, however, is the word “quarantine”, which has Italian roots.

Used during the Black Death of 1300, it indicated the period of time during which a ship entering port had to wait outside the city to prevent the spread of the disease.