lockdown

‘Lockdown’, the containment measure implemented by governments around the world to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, has been named the Collins Word of the Year 2020. Several other words related to the pandemic are included in Collins’ longer list of ten words of the year, which you can see below.

Our lexicographers chose ‘lockdown’ as Word of the Year because it is a unifying experience for billions of people across the world, who have had, collectively, to play their part in combating the spread of COVID-19. Collins registered over a quarter of a million usages of ‘lockdown’ during 2020, against only 4,000 the previous year.