Lots of people are looking up “pandemic” and “quarantine” and “Kafkaesque” in the dictionary.
March 13, 2020, 9:50am
Turns out people have some questions about the new coronavirus—and not just “what is social distancing, exactly” and “can I go to the gym?” This morning, Merriam-Webster lexicographer Peter Sokolowski tweeted this list of recent lookups in the digital dictionary:
Lookups @MerriamWebster, in order:
pandemic, coronavirus, quarantine, corona, epidemic, draconian, lockdown, novel, martial law, xenophobia, apocalypse, self-isolation, cancel, apoplectic, presumptive, endemic, mitigate, vector, calamity, virus, pestilence, postpone, Kafkaesque
— Peter Sokolowski (@PeterSokolowski) March 13, 2020
Kafkaesque, indeed. Stay safe out there. (Especially if you don’t already know the definition of “cancel.”)
