Vape Announced as Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2014

Vape. It’s the winning word of Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year distinction for 2014. The word vape may sound a bit odd, but it has picked up in usage in a significant way. The word is a verb and describes the act of inhaling or exhaling the vapor of an electronic cigarette. Vape can also be used as a noun — the slang name for an electronic cigarette or other similar device. The word, coincidentally, picked up popularity around the same time as the first vape cafe was opened in the United Kingdom, and the city of Chicago placed a ban on indoor public vaping.

Vape is accompanied by a variety of derivatives such as vaping, vape pen, vape shop, vape cafe, vape lounge and vape fluid.

The word beat out other contenders such as budtender and bae. Budtender is the name of the person who serves customers in a pot dispensary, much like a bartender in a bar. Bae is simply a romantic term of endearment or a reference to a romantic partner. Another word that didn’t make the cut is normcore. It refers to unfashionable clothing worn intentionally as a fashion statement. Contactless was also another loser this year. It refers to a method of payment such as Apple Pay, which is swipeless.

Oxford Dictionary announces a word of the year for both the UK and the US at the same time. Sometimes the word is the same for both countries, and sometimes two different words get the honor. In 2013, the word of the year, much like this year’s winner, was the winner in both the UK and the US. It was selfie.

In 2010 the U.K got big society and the U.S. got refudiate. In 2005 the U.K got Sudoku and the U.S. got podcast. In 2011 we shared squeezed middle and in 2004 we shared chav.

According to the Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year FAQs page, when the word of the year it selected, it’s first chosen from a number of words gathered by a research program called the Oxford Dictionaries New Monitor Corpus. This program gathers approximately 150 million words currently in use in the English language. This data is compiled and then the winner is selected by a group comprised of the dictionary staff from the editorial department, publicity department, marketing department, lexicographers and various dictionary team consultants. The winning word doesn’t have to be a new one, but it does have to have gained significant usage or prominence during the past year.

(Photo courtesy of Michael Dorausch)