Vaccine

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has just named ‘Vaccine’ as its Word of the Year for 2021.
 
"This was a word that was extremely high in our data every single day in 2021," Peter Sokolowski, the dictionary'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."
 
The words vaccination and vaccine come from Latin vaccinus (from cows) and from vacca (cow), a word of unknown origin, perhaps from Sanskrit vasa.
 
The word vaccination was coined in 1798 by British physician Edward Jenner (1749 – 1823) to name the technique of preventing smallpox by injecting people with the similar but milder cowpox virus.
 
The word vaccine (material used in a vaccination) is from 1846.
 
The Oxford English Dictionary chose ‘vax’ as its Word of the Year for 2021. Last year, Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year was ‘pandemic’.
 
Reference: Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/
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