Merriam-Webster Announces ‘Vaccine’ as its 2021 Word of the Year

The word “vaccine” is Merriam-Webster‘s 2021 word of the year.

Whether you’ve gotten one or not, the word “vaccine” came out of people’s mouths and was searched so much this year that Merriam-Webster announced Monday that “vaccine” is the word of the year.

“This was a word that was extremely high in our data every single day in 2021,” said Peter Sokolowski to The Associated Press, NBC News reports. “It really represents two different stories. One is the science story, which is this remarkable speed with which the vaccines were developed. But there’s also the debates regarding policy, politics and political affiliation. It’s one word that carries these two huge stories,” he went on.

While you might think 2020, would have been the year for “vaccine” to be used numerous times, searches for “vaccine” increased by 601 percent during the course of 2020. In 2019, many people weren’t concerning themselves too much with or talking about getting vaccinated.

The use of the word “vaccine” saw a search increase of 1,048 in 2021 as more and more people began considering their options for vaccinations.