“Uhankat vzhoperti”: 3,000 new words were found in Russian

Scientists at the Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences have published the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the Coronavirus Era. This is the first work that contains all the neologisms that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic . The dictionary contains about 3.5 thousand words.

Scientists noted that in 2020 a unique situation has developed - when the language was intensively replenished with new words, and existing ones expanded the number of meanings. For example, more than 40 names have been recorded just to designate a patient with covid.

The key, symbolic words of the era were recognized: “covid”, “coronavirus”, “corona”, “self-isolation”, “remote”, “remote”, “zoom (Zoom)”. 

The word "mask" and its derivatives, according to scientists, began to be used as a reflection of disagreements in society about the restrictions imposed ("mask throwing", "mask gun"). In addition, words have come into use to describe the level of fear (or lack thereof) in connection with the pandemic. For example, citizens who buy essential goods during a pandemic are called “covidiots”.

Under the conditions of strict quarantine, such concepts as “dogsharing” (a service for renting a dog for a permitted walk during a hard lockdown) and “quarantier” (a person renting a dog to those who want to walk along the street) appeared. The term “carantaholic” was applied to people who worked hard at a distance, as opposed to citizens who were released on paid holidays at the expense of employers.