眼下新冠病毒依然在全球肆虐，疫情相关词频频入选各大词典的年度词汇，《韦氏词典》也不例外。该词典选出的2021年度词汇是从去年火到今年的“疫苗”（vaccine）。
 

"Vaccine" is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. The word was selected based on lookup data, notable spikes, and year-over-year increases in searches.

《韦氏词典》的年度词汇是“疫苗”。该词是基于查询数据、访问量峰值和同比搜索增加量选出的。

"This is a word that has kind of two parallel but intersecting stories: one is a medical story, and one is a political story or a cultural story," said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor-at-large.

《韦氏词典》的特约编辑彼得·索科洛夫斯基说：“这个词有两个平行又相交的故事，一个是医学上的，还有一个是政治或文化上的。”

On the site, lookups for "vaccine" shot up 601% over 2020, especially toward the latter part of the year when the first US shot was administered in December. There was a 1,048% increase in site lookups this year compared to 2019.

《韦氏词典》网站上“疫苗”一词的查询量在2020年飙升了601%，下半年搜索量更高，尤其是去年12月美国接种第一剂疫苗之时。2021年“疫苗”一词的查询量比2019年增加了1048%。

And searches have remained stable through late fall, especially with talk about the Omicron variant and the efficacy of vaccines in stopping it.

而且该词搜索量一直到秋末都居高不下，尤其是在奥密克戎毒株引发有关疫苗有效性的讨论之后。

《韦氏词典》其他年度词汇候选

One notable runner-up word was "insurrection," searches for which increased by 61,000% on January 7, the day after the January 6 siege on the US Capitol.

一个值得注意的候选年度词汇是“暴动”，由于美国国会大厦在1月6日遭遇袭击，该词在1月7日的搜索量暴增61000%。

Another runner-up was "perseverance," the name of NASA's latest Mars rover, which landed February 18. The name was chosen by a seventh-grader in Virginia who participated in an essay contest organized by NASA.

另一个重要的候选年度词汇是“毅力”，是美国宇航局最新的火星探测器的名字。“毅力号”于2月18日登陆火星。这个名字是美国宇航局通过作文比赛公开征集名称时选中的，提交这个名称的是弗吉尼亚州的一名七年级学生。

Other words in Merriam-Webster’s Top 10 include 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) and woke (charged with politics and political correctness).

入选《韦氏词典》候选年度词汇前十名的还包括：蝉（因大举入侵美国而入选）、守卫者（美国棒球队克里夫兰印地安人更名为克里夫兰守卫者）、元（脸书母公司高大上的新名字）、顺性别者（自我性别认定和出生时的生理性别相同的人）和警醒（满脑子都是政治正确性）。