Explained: What Is Permacrisis? The Collins Dictionary Word Of The Year 2022. Check Top Ten List

Collins has compiled its annual list of top 10 words of the year. It said six terms and phrases on the list, including the top word ‘permacrisis’, are new to Collins Dictionary.

‘Permacrisis’ was first noted in academic contexts in the 1970s.

Source : Getty

The Collins Dictionary earlier this month came up with its Word Of The Year 2022. After recording a 20-fold increase in the use of the word over the year, Collins called ‘Permacrisis’ the word of the year, with its managing director Alex Beecroft saying the term "sums up just how truly awful 2022 has been for so many people". Kyiv, ‘Partygate’, ‘Quiet quitting’, and ‘Warm bank’ are some of the other words listed in Collins’ top ten.

Collins said it compiled the list, as part of its annual exercise, by monitoring its Collins Corpus database containing several billion words, besides several other sources, including social media. Six words on the list of ten, including ‘permacrisis’, are new to the dictionary, Collins said in a blog on its website.

What Is Permacrisis?

Permacrisis has been defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity”, which the world started to witness in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, amid the Russia-Ukraine war, and during an economic slowdown that has led to a cost-of-living crisis across the world.

Permacrisis describes this feeling of living through all this as Beecroft said, according to a BBC report, people could be feeling "we are in an ongoing state of uncertainty and worry".

Though the Collins Learning head was mainly referring to the people of the United Kingdom, the word resonates with those living in other parts of the world too as they live through the upheaval caused by one factor or the other in the first two years of the new decade.

Several words on the top ten list mentioned above relate to these crises, according to lexicographers at Collins. They "reflect our ever-evolving language and the preoccupations of those who use it", Beecroft was quoted as saying in the BBC report.

"Language can be a mirror to what is going on in society and the wider world, and this year has thrown up challenge after challenge," he added.

Though ‘permacrisis’ is a new word for CollinsDictionary.com, it is not that the term was never used before. 

It was in the 1970s that ‘permacrisis’ was first noted in academic contexts, the BBC report said.

Lockdown, climate strike, fake news, Brexit, and binge-watch were some of the previous words of the year listed by Collins.

BREAKING NEWS The Collins Word of the Year is… permacrisis.

Find out more about #CollinsWOTY 2022 and see the full list here: https://t.co/gvZ3BY1lL0#wordoftheyear #CollinsDictionary #permacrisis pic.twitter.com/3hlHUO5Igu

— HarperCollinsUK (@HarperCollinsUK) November 1, 2022

Collins’ Top 10 Words And Phrases For 2022

These are the top 10 words and phrases of the year 2022 chosen by the Collins Dictionary, and listed in alphabetical order here.

Carolean: The word refers to new British king Charles III or his reign that begins with the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the second Elizabethan age. 

Kyiv: The capital of Ukraine, which now symbolises resistance against the mighty, in its case the Russian aggression.

Lawfare: Collins describes the word as the “strategic use of legal proceedings to intimidate or hinder an opponent”.

Partygate: The word refers to the 2020 and 2021 political scandal over social gatherings held in UK government offices defying the social gathering restrictions that prevailed at the time due to the pandemic.

Permacrisis: An “extended period of instability and insecurity”, usually happens after a series of catastrophic events.

Quiet quitting: It’s the growing practice of doing just basic duties at work and no more than one is obliged to do, so they can spend more time with family or on other personal activities. While the practice is characterised by doing little or no work at one's place of employment, its proponents seek to reject the cut-throat competitiveness in careers and  after-work-hours emails that lead to a skewed work-life balance.

Splooting: It is described as the act of lying flat on the stomach, on a cool surface, with legs stretched out to counter unusually high temperatures — a behaviour normally seen in animals. Social media was flooded with images of cats, dogs, squirrels and other animals ‘splooting’ throughout 2022, the year that saw heatwaves wreaking havoc in many parts of the world.

Sportswashing: It’s the term for sponsorship or promotion of sporting events to enhance reputation or distract attention from something controversial. For example, Qatar, which is hosting the 2022 World Cup beginning this month, has been accused of “sportswashing”, amid allegations of mistreatment of migrant labour, homophobia and crackdown on freedom of expression.

Vibe shift: The phrase means a “significant change in a prevailing cultural atmosphere or trend”. 

Warm bank: The term describes a heated building, which could be a public library or a place of worship, where people can go because they cannot afford to heat their own homes during the winter months due to the spiralling energy costs, especially in Europe.