‘Vape’ has been chosen by Oxford Dictionaries as its word of the year.
‘Vape’ has been chosen by Oxford Dictionaries as its word of the year.
It was added to the reference publication in August and is defined as, "to inhale and exhale the vapour produced by an electronic cigarette or similar device."
Also noted is that vape can be used as a noun, in which case it describes both the apparatus and the practice.
Usage of the word has more than doubled in the past year and is 30 times more common than it was in the one prior to that.
E-cigarettes have been around since the 80s, but it’s only recently that they, and their nomenclature, have really caught on.
The people at Oxford wanted to acknowledge its meteoric rise.
Said the president of the University of Oxford department in charge of the dictionary, "I particularly love watching a word like 'vape' create linguistic knock-on effects, like hearing the word 'tobacco' now used to qualify 'cigarette’. But this year 'vape' also served as an insightful window onto how we define ourselves."
Other contenders for the title included bae, a term used to denote affection, and slacktivism, which describes limiting one’s involvement with causes to signing online petitions and joining social media groups.