Dictionary.com Adds Coronavirus Words To The Dictionary
Normally, we track new words for years
before seeing enough evidence to convince us
they have the staying power
to merit inclusion in our traditional dictionary.
Well, it’s not a normal day at the office.
We’re all working at home, for one thing.
COVID-19 has changed the dictionary world
as suddenly and profoundly
as it has changed all of our personal and professional lives.
In a period of just a few weeks,
we’ve acquired a new vocabulary to talk about novel coronavirus.
And so our lexicographers have updated Dictionary.com with some of these new coronavirus words and senses to help you stay informed and safe during these unprecedented times.
Find the complete list at the end of the article.
New coronavirus words
for public health
Traditionally, there are subject-specific dictionaries,
like medical dictionaries, for those words that only professionals in the field would know and use.
Suddenly, however, everyday people know and use words like asymptomatic and prodrome,
or “an early symptom that signals the onset of an illness or disease.”
Amid the pandemic, we’re all speaking like epidemiologists.
We’re now familiar with specialized lingo,
including abbreviations like PPE (personal protective equipment).
You might read an article in your local paper about the gym or the grocery store that educates you about fomites or a sneeze’s viral load.
Words that we might have known primarily fromother contexts, like corona or novel, now have newly significant meanings,
so we also revised existing entries to add definitions for these specific scientific senses.
New coronavirus words in society and the economy
Social behaviors and government guidance are alsocommon topics of conversation.
We’ve added noun and verb definitions to social distance,
a word with a long history in the field of sociology,
whose public health meanings appeared amongspecialists in that field less than 20 years ago.
But today, at the forefront of our minds are newer definitions of the term, especially “to maintain a safe orappropriate distance from other people, especially to slow the spread of a contagious illness or disease.”
Shelter in place is not a new designation (it dates back 40 years),
but it has a specific meaning,
unlike the more general expression hunker down.
And while containment has many meanings, we’ve updated the one that applies to public health and safety.
Social distancing and shelter-in-placeguidelines have, of course, caused society—and the economy—great strain, too.
Hard times put grim and disheartening stories into the headlines,
so our lexicographers have been evaluating and updating definitions for words like profiteering, price gouging, and gouge.
Dig deeper into the economic dimensions of COVID-19
in our articles on furlough vs. layoff and depression vs. recession.
We can still have fun
Humanity also appears to be hard-wired to take the building blocks for communication and use them for fun, whether with puns and double entendres, or tongue twisters and silly noises.
Social media is ripe for this kind of language play,
as you see with riffs on memes and phrasal templates designed to be manipulated for humor
—if often gallows humor, in the case of the coronavirus crisis.
So, it was only a matter of time before COVID-19 became rona online.
The rona and other short variants began showing up in irreverent or funny comments by mid-March, just as the grim realities of the pandemic were becoming clear.
Curious about more slang terms that have sprung up amid the coronavirus? We’ve been tracking them here.
Language in the time of COVID-19
Linguists will tell you that it’s not unusual for language to become highly productive and innovative in times ofupheaval and tragedy. But why?
War, slavery, economic collapse, and mass migration have historically jolted people into unforeseen contact that changestheir language.
Not dissimilarly, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrust us out of our regular linguistic bubbles and brought us into contact with specialized vocabulary we couldn’t have predicted needing.
The virus has abruptly upended life for many.
In response, we see people doing what human beings have always done—acquiring and inventing new words to understand and to exercise control over the world.
The team at Dictionary.com will be here alongside you, continuing to document, explain, and share the words that are helping us make sense of our new reality.
For health, safety, and medical emergencies or updates on the novel coronavirus pandemic, please visit the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and WHO (World Health Organization).
For more words related to the coronavirus, see our glossary.
And for more important distinctions between confusing words related to the coronavirus and its societal impact,
See our articles
virus vs. bacteria, and
