Trending: β€˜pandemic’

Lookups spiked 900% on February 24, 2020

Why are people looking up pandemic?

Pandemic was among our top lookups on February 24, 2020, following reports on the global spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Surge of Hundreds of New Cases of Coronavirus Around the World Raise Fears of Pandemic
β€” (headline) The Weather Channel, (weather.com), 24 Feb. 2020

The World Health Organization says it doesn't yet consider the deadly coronavirus outbreak to be a pandemic. While there have been more than 77,000 cases of COVID-19 (the official name of the illness) and more than 2,600 deaths, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday said we aren't yet "witnessing the uncontained global spread of this coronavirus." However, he added that the virus has pandemic potential.
β€” Carrie Mihalcik, CNET, 24 Feb. 2020

What does pandemic mean?

A pandemic is β€œan outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population.” Pandemics differ from epidemics and outbreaks; the latter (outbreak) is a sudden rise in the incidence of a disease and typically is confined to a localized area or a specific group of people, and the former (epidemic) is an outbreak of contagious disease that has become more severe and less localized, quick-spreading and affecting many people. A pandemic is a widespread epidemic.

Citations

This influence he designates more properly β€œpandemic” than β€œepidemic,” and in conformity again with the language of Dr. Watson, β€œhe calls these successive waves pandemic waves.”
β€” The American Journal of the Medical Sciences (Philadelphia, PA), Oct. 1866

Trend Watch is a data-driven report on words people are looking up at much higher search rates than normal. While most trends can be traced back to the news or popular culture, our focus is on the lookup data rather than the events themselves.


Commonly Confused Words Quiz

  • vector image of a face with thought expression
  • I went to the ______ store to buy a birthday card.
True or False

Test your knowledge - and maybe learn something along the way.

TAKE THE QUIZ
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.

You can make only 12 words. Pick the best ones!

PLAY
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!