Vax injected into English language - 3rd January 2022

'Vax' has been picked out as the word for 2021 by the OED, the Oxford English Dictionary, in their yearly competition. Words connected to vaccines grew in use in 2021 due to coronavirus.

Related words include 'double-vaxxed', 'unvaxxed' and 'anti-vaxxer'. The OED partly chose the word 'vax' because of the way it easily forms other words. Examples are 'vax-a-thon' and 'vaxxie'. 'Vax' was selected because of the huge effect it has had on our daily lives.

The word appeared in the 1980s but was infrequent. However, there is written evidence to show the word was first used in English in 1799, with the verb form 'vaccinate' in 1800. The spelling of the word 'vax' can either be with one 'x' or two, with the second form being less typical.

The OED actually picked out a handful of words last year, because the past months have been so strange. Many of the other words were Covid-19 related, like 'WFH' (working from home) and 'lockdown', which was also Collins Dictionary's choice for 2020. Words such as 'Black Lives Matter' and 'bushfires' were on the list as well.

The OED uses a body of language of 14.5 billion words. It's collected from different news sources and it's added to each day. This collection is used to research how language use changes.