Cambridge Dictionary reveals its word of the year

Perseverance has been named Cambridge Dictionary's word of the year, thanks in part to this space mission Credit: NASA

Cambridge Dictionary has revealed its word of the year is 'perseverance’.

'Perseverance' is defined by Cambridge Dictionary as a "continued effort to do or achieve something, even when this is difficult or takes a long time".

This word has been looked up globally more than 243,000 times during 2021, but had not appeared noticeably in lookups on the Cambridge Dictionary website before.

However, a spike of 30,487 searches for 'perseverance' occurred between 19–25 February 2021, after NASA’s Perseverance Rover made its final descent to Mars on 18 February.

"We often see spikes in lookups of words associated with current events when those words are less familiar," said Wendalyn Nichols, Cambridge Dictionary publishing manager.

“It made sense that lookups of 'perseverance' spiked at this time.”

Before 2021 'perseverance' didn’t appear noticeably in Cambridge Dictionary searches Credit: Cambridge Dictionary
Searches for 'perseverance' spiked after NASA’s Perseverance Rover made its final descent to Mars Credit: NASA

She added: “Cambridge Dictionary is the top website in the world for learners of English, and 'perseverance' is not a common word for students of English to have in theirvocabulary.

"We often see spikes in lookups of words associated with current events when those words are less familiar.”

In addition to this spike, 'perseverance' has continued to be looked up more frequently on the Cambridge Dictionary site than ever before.

Further evidence that words looked up on Cambridge Dictionary often reflect current world events is that, in January 2021, searches for 'insurrection', 'impeachment' and 'inauguration' all spiked, as the world closely followed the US presidential election.

Cambridge Dictionary says searched words often reflect world events such as the US Capitol riots and presidential election Credit: ITV News

Last year the Cambridge Dictionary word of the year was 'quarantine'.

According to the dictionary, 'quarantine' was searched for the most in March 2020, when restrictions began to be imposed due to the pandemic.

Alongside 'quarantine' other Covid-related words, including 'lockdown' and 'pandemic' ranked highly on Cambridge Dictionary’s most popular list for 2020.