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With an expanded definition to reflect the times, Merriam-Webster has declared an omnipresent truth as its 2021 word of the year: vaccine.

“This was a word that was extremely high in our data every single day in 2021,” Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large, told The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s announcement. 

“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 said.

The selection follows “vax” as word of the year from the folks who publish the Oxford English Dictionary. And it comes after Merriam-Webster chose “pandemic” as tops in lookups last year on its online site.

“The pandemic was the gun going off and now we have the aftereffects,” Sokolowski said.

At Merriam-Webster, lookups for “vaccine” increased 601% over 2020, when the first U.S. shot was administered in New York in December after quick development, and months of speculation and discussion over efficacy. The world’s first jab occurred earlier that month in the UK.

Compared to 2019, when there was little urgency or chatter about vaccines, Merriam-Webster logged an increase of 1,048% in lookups this year. Debates over inequitable distribution, vaccine mandates and boosters kept interest high, Sokolowski said. So did vaccine hesitancy and friction over vaccine passports.

The word “vaccine” wasn’t birthed in a day, or due to a single pandemic. The first known use stretches back to 1882 but references pop up earlier related to fluid from cowpox pustules used in inoculations, Sokolowski said. It was borrowed from the New Latin “vaccina,” which goes back to Latin’s feminine “vaccinus,” meaning “of or from a cow.”  

The Latin for cow is “vacca,” a word that might be akin to the Sanskrit “vasa,” according to Merriam-Webster. 

Inoculation, on the other hand, dates to 1714, in one sense referring to the act of injecting an “inoculum.”

Earlier this year, Merriam-Webster added to its online entry for “vaccine” to cover all the talk of mRNA vaccines, or messenger vaccines such as those for COVID-19 developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. 

While other dictionary companies choose words of the year by committee, Merriam-Webster bases its selection on lookup data, paying close attention to spikes and, more recently, year-over-year increases in searches after weeding out evergreens. The company has been declaring a word of the year since 2008. Among its runners-up in the word biography of 2021:

INSURRECTION: Interest was driven by the deadly Jan. 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol. Arrests continue, as do congressional hearings over the attack by supporters of President Donald Trump. Some of Trump’s allies have resisted subpoenas, including Steve Bannon. Searches for the word increased by 61,000% over 2020, Sokolowksi said.

INFRASTRUCTURE: President Joe Biden was able to deliver what Trump often spoke of but never achieved: A bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law. When Biden proposed help with broadband access, eldercare and preschool, conversation changed from not only roads and bridges but “figurative infrastructure,” Sokolowski said.

“Many people asked, what is infrastructure if it’s not made out of steel or concrete? Infrastructure, in Latin, means underneath the structure,” he said. 

PERSEVERANCE: It’s the name of NASA’s latest Mars rover. It landed Feb. 18, 2021. “Perseverance is the most sophisticated rover NASA has ever sent to the Red Planet, with a name that embodies NASA’s passion, and our nation’s capability, to take on and overcome challenges,” the space agency said.  

The name was thought up by Alexander Mather, a 14-year-old seventh-grader at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. He participated in an essay contest organized by NASA. He was one of 28,000 K-12 students to submit entries. 

NOMAD: The word had its moment with the 2020 release of the film “Nomadland.” It went on to win three Oscars in April 2021, including best picture, director (Chloé Zhao) and actress (Frances McDormand). Zhao became the first woman of color to win best director.  

The AP’s film writer Jake Coyle called the indie success “a plain-spoken meditation on solitude, grief and grit. He wrote that it “struck a chord in a pandemic-ravaged year. It made for an unlikely Oscar champ: A film about people who gravitate to the margins took center stage.”

Other words in Merriam-Webster’s Top 10: Cicada (we had an invasion), guardian (the Cleveland Indians became the Cleveland Guardians), meta (the lofty new name of Facebook’s parent company), cisgender (a gender identity that corresponds to one’s sex assigned at birth), woke (charged with politics and political correctness) and murraya (a tropical tree and the word that won the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee for 14-year-old Zaila Avant-garde).
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Virgil Abloh, fashion’s highest profile Black designer and the creative mind behind Louis Vuitton’s menswear collections, died on Sunday of cancer, Vuitton’s owner LVMH said.

The French luxury goods giant said Abloh, 41, had been battling cancer privately for years.

“Virgil was not only a genius designer, a visionary, he was also a man with a beautiful soul and great wisdom,” LVMH’s billionaire boss Bernard Arnault said in a statement.

Abloh, a U.S. national who also worked as a DJ and visual artist, had been men’s artistic director for Vuitton, the world’s biggest luxury brand, since March 2018.

His arrival at LVMH marked the marriage between streetwear and high-end fashion, mixing sneakers and camouflage pants with tailored suits and evening gowns. His influences included graffiti art, hip hop and skateboard culture.

The style was embraced by the group as it sought to breathe new life into some labels and attract younger customers.

In July this year, LVMH expanded his role, giving him a mandate to launch new brands and partner with existing ones in a variety of sectors beyond fashion.

LVMH also bought a 60% stake in Abloh’s Off-White label, which it folded into the spirits-to-jewelry conglomerate.

“For over two years, Virgil valiantly battled a rare, aggressive form of cancer, cardiac angiosarcoma,” a message posted to his Instagram said. “He chose to endure his battle privately since his diagnosis in 2019, undergoing numerous challenging treatments, all while helming several significant institutions that span fashion, art, and culture.”

Abloh drew on messages of inclusivity and gender-fluidity to expand the Louis Vuitton label’s popularity, weaving themes of racial identity into his fashion shows with poetry performances and art installations.

With an eye to reaching Asian consumers grounded by the coronavirus pandemic, the designer sent his collections of colorful suits and utilitarian-flavored outerwear off to Shanghai last summer, when many labels canceled fashion shows.

“Virgil Abloh was the essence of modern creativity,” said an Instagram post by Alexandre Arnault, one of Bernard Arnault’s sons and executive vice president for product and communications at U.S. jeweler Tiffany, which LVMH bought this year.
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A documentary about pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong won a high-profile award Saturday in Taiwan at the Golden Horse Awards, the Chinese-speaking world’s version of the Oscars.

Kiwi Chow’s “Revolution of Our Times” was named best documentary, prompting a long round of applause and shouts of support for Hong Kong from audience members at the glitzy event in Taipei.

Chow, who sent a pre-recorded message from Hong Kong expressing thanks for the award, dedicated the film to Hong Kong’s people, saying he hoped it would bring them some comfort.

“I cried a lot when I produced this film; several times I comforted myself with this film, to express my anger, hatred, to face my fear and trauma,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

Native Hongkonger Chow’s film follows several protesters and documents clashes with police during the 2019 demonstrations, and he has previously told Reuters he hoped the documentary would help the pro-democracy movement live on.

It was shown at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in a surprise addition to the lineup. China introduced a sweeping national security law for Hong Kong over a year ago to crack down on what it deems subversion, secessionism, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

Since then, cinemas, universities and art galleries have canceled screenings or exhibitions of protest-related works. The protesters have won broad support and sympathy in democratically-ruled Taiwan.

China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, in 2019 blocked the country’s movie industry from participating in the Golden Horse Awards, which were founded in 1962 and take place annually in Taiwan.

Beijing’s move followed uproar in 2018 in China and among Chinese stars at the awards ceremony after Taiwanese director Fu Yue made comments in support of Taiwan’s formal independence, a red line for Beijing.
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Most Americans don’t have oysters on their Thanksgiving table, but, for a time, the mollusks were a key ingredient on the White House holiday menu. 

“Oyster stuffing and various oyster elements were always included, especially in the later 19th century. Oysters were very popular,” says Lina Mann, a historian with the White House Historical Association. “I think that the location of Washington, D.C., near the Chesapeake Bay, which was a huge oyster hub, made it more of a regional sort of thing, but that has died out over the years.” 

In addition to oysters, White House Thanksgiving meals have included other regional foods such as rockfish from the Potomac River, turtles from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and cranberries from Massachusetts.

Because the holiday is often a more private affair, the White House Thanksgiving menu is not set. Presidential families often spend the day away from the White House, either out of town at their own private homes or at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. 

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan spent Thanksgiving at his California ranch. The menu included turkey, cranberries, cornbread dressing, salad, mashed potatoes, monkey bread, string beans with almonds, and pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream. 

In 1996, President Bill Clinton enjoyed Thanksgiving with family and friends at Camp David, where they ate turkey; dressing with bread stuffing; giblet gravy; mashed potatoes; sweet potatoes; green beans; cranberry mold; a relish tray of pickles, celery, tomatoes, green onions, green and black olives, and carrots; fruit salad; cranberry salad; and pecan and pumpkin pies. 

In 2007, also at Camp David, President George W. Bush and family feasted on a meal that included turkey, jellied cranberry molds, whipped sweet potato soufflé and pumpkin mousse trifle. 

No matter where the commander in chief spends the holiday, turkey is usually on the menu and has been since the 1870s. 

“You have a man named Horace Vose, who is the quote, “poultry king of Rhode Island,” and he starts sending, in 1873, all of these turkeys to the White House,” Mann says. “He does that for Christmas and Thanksgiving, and he does it for 40 years until he dies in 1913. So, there is this kind of precedent of the public sending presidents various birds to their table.” 

But people haven’t always sent poultry. In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge received an unusual offering from a supporter in Mississippi. 

“They were sent a raccoon that was supposed to be served on his Thanksgiving table,” Mann says. “But the Coolidge family decided they didn’t want to eat the raccoon. So instead, they ended up making her a family pet. They named her Rebecca and then eventually Coolidge, for Christmas that year, got her a collar that said, ‘White House Raccoon’ on it.” 

What presidents eat for Thanksgiving can also depend on what is going on in the country. In 1917, during World War I, President Woodrow Wilson remained in Washington and focused on having a more economical Thanksgiving. 

“So, they’re eating cream of oyster soup with turkey trimmings and vegetables, pumpkin pie for the very simple menu,” Mann says. “First Lady Edith Wilson wanted to abide by various food conservation programs that were spearheaded at the time.” 

There were also more austere Thanksgivings during the Great Depression and World War II. In 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his family dined on “clam cocktail, clear soup, roast turkey with chestnut stuffing and cranberry sauce, Spanish corn, small sausages and beans, sweet potato cones, grapefruit salad, pumpkin pie and cheese, coffee, and ice cream.”

This year, President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are spending Thanksgiving on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, a family tradition since 1975. The first lady recently shared Thanksgiving recipes, including her grandmother’s savory stuffing featuring stale Italian bread, with the Food Network.

“Food is love — and gathering together this year for Thanksgiving is healing for our hearts,” Jill Biden said. “The family recipes passed down through the generations, the fun traditions that continue, and the meaningful blessings shared, all keep me filled with gratitude.”
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