VNS has already reported that the editors of the popular Merriam-Webster dictionary last month chose the Word of the Year as a “pandemic”. The editorial office of the Dictionary.com Internet dictionary did the same. But when the site asked a similar question to the dictionary users, the result was different.
They chose the word “unprecedented” by the majority of votes in the nomination “People’s Word of 2020”. It was chosen by Dictionary.com users because it best describes the circumstances and feelings of people in 2020. “What’s particularly interesting about ‘unprecedented’ from a linguistic point of view is the life cycle of that word this year,” said the dictionary’s senior scientific editor John Kelly. “Pandemic, protests, presidential elections, extreme climatic episodes – 2020 made people look for a word that could do justice to the scale and pace of all these shocks.” The word “unparalleled” has been the subject of a large number of searches on Dictionary.com and has been used frequently in emails, advertisements, and headlines.
Newspaper headline:
“Unprecedented” choice