2020 has been a busy year for dictionary makers with a wave of new words and changes in meaning of older words, according to an English language learning expert from Cambridge. Dr Nick Saville from Cambridge Assessment English says English speakers have learned a lot of new vocabulary this year, including Coronavirus, Covid, Furlough, R-Rate and many more, not to mention Zoom.
His comments come as experts from the Cambridge Dictionary announced their word of the year as Quarantine. The Cambridge Dictionary is developed by Cambridge University Press and is the world’s leading online dictionary for learners of English. Experts analysed millions of searches made by users and chose Quarantine as their word of the year. It is a long established word, originally borrowed from 14th century Italian, Quarantena, meaning a period of 40 days. This year it has become widely used in English and many other languages as “a general period of time in which people are not allowed to leave their homes or travel freely, so that they do not catch or spread a disease.”
Dr Nick Saville, who works closely with experts at Cambridge University Press, says:
“Quarantine is a really interesting choice for word of the year, not just because it’s one of the many words that Italian has given to English. It also shows the complexity of English pronunciation, as it looks as if it rhymes with ‘mine’ but actually it sounds like ‘mean’!