Word of the year 2020: winner and other candidates at a glance

It was already becoming apparent during 2020 that the word of the year would most likely have something to do with the global pandemic. Then, in December, there was the official confirmation.

A pandemic linguistically, too: the word of the year for 2020 was no big surprise.

The Society for the German Language (GfdS) in Wiesbaden takes on the task of honoring the most important words every year. In 2020, the topic was inevitably clearly given.

This was the word of the year 2020 - and these were the competitors

The first place did not come as too much of a surprise:

• "Corona pandemic" was awarded as the word of the year 2020.

Also interesting is the look at other words that were up for selection:

• Place 2: "Lockdown"
• Place 3: "Conspiracy Narrative"
• Place 4: "Black Lives Matter"
• Place 5: "AHA"

Terms related to the Corona crisis also dominated the other places; "systemically relevant" landed in sixth place, followed by "triage" and "ghost games." "Gendersternchen" followed in ninth place, the second word unrelated to the crisis, before the top 10 was concluded with "Bleiben Sie gesund!".