Permacrisis declared Collins Dictionary word of the year

Permacrisis, a word describing the feeling of living through a period of war, inflation, and political instability, has been chosen as Collins Dictionary's word of the year.

Beating off competition from 10 words or phrases like "Kyiv", "sportswashing" and "partygate", the term "permacrisis" was named Tuesday (1 November) as Britain's word of the year in recognition of a dismal 2022, reports BBC.

Collins Learning Head Alex Beecroft said that the word "permacrisis" sums up just how truly awful 2022 has been for so many people.

This phrase is "the act of doing one's basic duties at work and no more, either by way of protest or to improve work/life balance."

"Language can be a mirror to what is going on in society and the wider world, and this year has thrown up challenge after challenge," Beecroft added.

He said it was understandable that people may feel "we are in an ongoing state of uncertainty and worry", after "living through upheaval caused by Brexit, the pandemic, severe weather, the war in Ukraine, political instability, the energy squeeze and the cost-of-living crisis".

Collins's lexicographers said several words on the list relate to these crises.

The list was compiled by monitoring the eight billion-word Collins Corpus database of words, plus a range of media sources, including social media.

Permacrisis is one of six words on the list that are new to CollinsDictionary.com, and was first noted as a word in academic contexts in the 1970s.

The other top nine words and phrases and their full definitions are:

"Carolean" refers to Charles III of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or his reign.

The arrival of Kyiv as the preferred variant to the Russian spelling of "Kiev" pointed to Britain's support for Ukraine against Moscow's invasion.

"Sportswashing" refers to the staging of high-profile sports events, or the takeover of well-known teams, by unsavoury regimes.

Meanwhile, "partygate" was one of the many scandals that brought down prime minister Boris Johnson this year.

Britain is now on its third prime minister since 2022 and also has a new monarch in King Charles III.

Derived from the Latin for Charles, the term "Carolean" entered the Collins list after his mother Queen Elizabeth II's death last month.

Among other phrases on the list was "warm bank,"  a place such as a library or place of worship where cash-strapped Britons struggling to pay soaring energy bills can go to find heating.

Another was "quiet quitting" -- defined as doing the bare minimum at work, either as a protest against your employer or to improve your work-life balance.

Last year's word of the year for the Oxford Dictionary was vax, while words related to vaccines spiked in frequency in 2021 because of Covid, with double-vaxxed, unvaxxed, and anti-vaxxer all seeing a surge in use.

Previous Collins' words of the year include lockdown, climate strike, single-use, fake news, Brexit, binge-watch, photobomb, and geek.

The Oxford Dictionary's previous words of the year include climate emergency, toxic, youthquake, post-truth, emoji-tears-of-joy, vape and selfie.