Vax has been chosen as the word of the year by lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
Words related to vaccines have spiked in frequency in 2021 due to Covid, with double-vaxxed, unvaxxed and anti-vaxxer all seeing a surge in use.
Use of the word pandemic has also increased by more than 57,000% this year, BBC reported.
Oxford Languages and Collins each decide their own word of the year, and in 2020 Collins chose "lockdown". But Oxford decided it was an unprecedented year with too many contenders, so expanded its award to encompass a handful of newly key words including lockdown, bushfires and Covid-19, as well as Black Lives Matter, WFH [working from home], keyworkers and furlough.
This year's Oxford-winning word, vax, was first recorded in English in 1799, while its derivatives vaccinate and vaccination both first appear in 1800.
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