NEW YORK — On Dec. 31, China reported a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown origin to the World Health Organization. By Jan. 31, WHO declared an outbreak of a novel coronavirus a global health ...

Unprecedented times beget unprecedented updates to the English language. That’s the major takeaway from the Oxford University Press — the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) — in its ...

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has been unable to name its traditional word of the year for 2020, instead, exploring how far and how quickly the language has developed this year. "It quickly ...

Merriam-Webster on Monday announced "pandemic" as its 2020 word of the year. On March 11, when the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic, lookups on the ...

noun: an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affects a significant proportion of the population adjective: ...

NEW YORK — If you were to choose a word that rose above most in 2020, which word would it be? Ding, ding, ding: Merriam-Webster on Monday announced “pandemic” as its 2020 word of the year. “That ...

NPR's Don Gonyea speaks with Ben Zimmer, a linguist and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, about the words of the year. And finally today, the coronavirus has affected nearly every aspect of our ...

With the year drawing to a close, I've been contacted by several journalists who've asked, "What's the word of the year for 2020?" This year has definitely been an eventful and memorable one, so there ...