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As the spread of Covid-19 （coronavirus disease 2019） has altered the lives of billions of people， it has correspondingly ushered in a new vocabulary to the general populace1 encompassing specialist terms from the fields of epidemiology and medicine， new acronyms， and words to express the societal imperatives of imposed isolation and distancing. It is a consistent theme of lexicography that great social change brings great linguistic change， and that has never been truer than in this current global crisis.
OED lexicographers， who like many others are all working from home （WFH， first attested as a noun in 1995 and as a verb in 2001）， are tracking the development of the language of the pandemic and offering a linguistic and historical context to their usage.
Self-isolation （recorded from 1834） and self-isolating （1841）， now used to describe self-imposed isolation to prevent catching or transmitting an infectious disease， were in the 1800s more often applied to countries which chose to detach themselves politically and economically from the rest of the world.
The current crisis have seen the appearance of genuinely new words， phrases， combinations， and abbreviations which were not necessarily coined for the epidemic， but have seen far wider usage since it began. Infodemic （a portmanteau2 word from information and epidemic） is the outpouring of often unsubstantiated3 media and online information relating to a crisis. The term was coined in 2003 for the SARS epidemic， but has also been used to describe the current proliferation of news around coronavirus. The phrase shelter-in-place， a protocol4 instructing people to find a place of safety in the location they are occupying until the all clear is sounded， was devised as an instruction for the public in 1976 in the event of a nuclear or terrorist attack， but has now been adapted as advice to people to stay indoors to protect themselves and others from coronavirus. Social distancing， first used in 1957， was originally an attitude rather than a physical term， referring to an aloofness5 or deliberate attempt to distance oneself from others socially—now we all understand it as keeping a physical distance between ourselves and others to avoid infection. And an elbow bump， along with a hand slap and high five6， was in its earliest manifestation （1981） a way of conveying celebratory pleasure to a teammate， rather than a means of avoiding hand-touching when greeting a friend， colleague， or stranger. While WFH （working from home） dates from 1995 as mentioned previously， the abbreviation was known to very few before it became a way of life for so many of us. PPE is now almost universally recognized as personal protective （or protection） equipment—an abbreviation dating from 1977 but formerly probably restricted to healthcare and emergency professionals. The full phrase—personal protective equipment—dates from as far back as 1934.
As a historical dictionary， the OED is already full of words that show us how our forebears grappled linguistically with the epidemics they witnessed and experienced. The earliest of these appeared in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries， when the great plague of 1347–50 and its follow-ups， which killed an estimated 40–60 per cent of the population of Europe， must surely have been an ever-present memory and fear. Pestilence， ‘a fatal epidemic or disease’， was borrowed from French and Latin， and first appears in Wycliffe’s bible of a13827， not long after this first great devastation. The related term pest （from French peste） appeared shortly afterwards. Our weakened uses of pest—an insect that infects crops， an annoying person—stem from this original plague usage. Pox （from the plural of ‘pock’， denoting a pustule or the mark it leaves） appeared in 1476 as a term applied to a number of virulently contagious diseases， most especially the dreaded smallpox （first recorded in the 1560s）.
It was the great plagues of the seventeenth century， however， that opened the floodgates for the entry into English of words to describe the experience of epidemic disease. Epidemic and pandemic both appeared in the seventeenth century; the Black Plague （so called from the black pustules that appeared on the skin of the victims） was first used in the early 1600s （although its more familiar synonym Black Death， surprisingly， did not appear until 1755）. It was the seventeenth-century plague that saw a whole village in Derbyshire choose to self-isolate or self-quarantine; the adjective self-quarantined was first applied， in a historical description from 1878， to the story of the heroic population of Eyam， which isolated itself in 1665–6 to avoid infecting the surrounding villages， and lost around a third of its population as a consequence.
As the world expanded， so too did the spread of diseases and their vocabulary. Yellow fever appeared in 1738， and the so-called Spanish influenza in 1890 （reduced to Spanish flu during the great epidemic of 1918）. Poliomyelitis appeared in 1878 （shortened to polio in 1911）， although the epidemic that attacked children especially and struck fear into the heart of parents was at its worst just after WWII. AIDS （acquired immune deficiency syndrome） appeared in 1982， and SARS （severe acute respiratory syndrome） in 2003. The coronaviruses themselves （so-called because they resemble the solar corona） were first described as long ago as 1968 in a paper in Nature， but before 2020 few people had heard of the term beyond the scientists studying them. As we continue to monitor our in-house corpora and other language data to spot new words and senses associated with the pandemic and assess the frequency of their usage， the OED will keep updating its coverage to help tell the story of these times that will inevitably become embedded in our language.
2019冠状病毒病（英文简称Covid-19）肆虐，致使数十亿人生活被改写，一些新词随之进入大众视野，包括来自流行病学和医学领域的专业术语、新的首字母缩略语，以及描述强制隔离和保持社交距离等社会防疫规定的一些单词。词典编纂有一个永恒主题：巨大社会变革带来巨大语言变革，并且这一主题从未像在当下这个全球危机中表现得这般真实。
OED编纂人员也像许多人一样是“居家办公”（working from home，略作WFH。WFH首次确认可作为名词使用是在1995年，可作为动词使用是在2001年），在追踪这个大流行病相关语汇的发展历程，研究其用法的语言学和历史学背景。
self-isolation和self-isolating（意为“自我隔离”）分别于1834年和1841年就有了记载，现在用以描述自我强加的隔离，以防止感染或传播传染性疾病，而在19世纪更经常用以描述某些国家，它们选择在政治和经济上与外部世界隔绝。
在当下的疫情危机中，还出现了一些真正新造的单词、短语、词语组合以及缩略语。这些词语并不一定是为此次新冠病毒疫情而创的，但是自疫情暴发以来它们有了更多的用法。infodemic（信息疫情，由information和epidemic混合而成的单词），是指与某次危机相关而内容往往不实的信息在媒体和网上泛滥。这个词是2003年非典疫情时创造的，但也被用于描述当下正迅猛扩散的有关冠状病毒的新闻。短语shelter-in-place（就地避难）是1976年为防范核攻击或恐怖袭击而制定的一项规则，指导公众在住所当地寻找一个安全之处躲避直至听到警报完全解除，但是现在已经被调整为一项建议——劝告人们待在家中以使自己和他人免受病毒感染。“社交疏远”最初用在1957年，原本是一种态度而非物理距离，指的是交际中冷漠或故意试图与他人疏远，而现在我们都将其理解为自己与他人之间保持物理距离以避免感染。再有“碰肘”，跟用同一只手与对方拍掌再举手相击一样，最早（1981年）是队友之间的庆祝动作，而不像现在成了问候朋友、同事或陌生人时避免用手直接接触的一种方式。
前面提到WFH（居家办公），这一缩略语的出现可以追溯至1995年，然而在它成为我们许多人的生活方式之前，知之者甚少。PPE，现在几乎尽人皆知它是personal protective （or protection） equipment（个人防护装备）的缩略，始于1977年，但是之前可能仅限医疗和急救专业人士使用。该短语的完整形式personal protective equipment则可回溯至1934年。
作为一部具有历史意义的词典，OED早已载满了形形色色的疾病相关词汇，这些词汇展示了我们的前辈如何从语言的角度与他们亲见亲历的流行病一较高下。此类词语最早出现在14世纪晚期和15世纪，1347—1350年间那场造成欧洲40%—60%人口死亡的大瘟疫及其后续问题，也肯定成为了难以摆脱的记忆，无时无刻不令人恐惧。pestilence（瘟疫），即“一种致命的流行病或疾病”，是从法语和拉丁语借来的词语，并且它的首次出现是在1382之前的威克里夫《圣经》版本，也就是第一次瘟疫灾变后不久。随后不久出现了相关词语pest（害虫）（来自法语的peste）。我们对pest一词的那些弱化使用——感染庄稼的害虫，令人讨厌的人——都派生自这个最初对瘟疫的指称。pox（为pock的复数形式，pock是指小脓包或它留下的疤痕）一词出现在1476年，当时可用于指称许多恶性传染病，尤其是特指可怕的天花（最初的记载是在16世纪60年代）。
然而，17世紀那场大瘟疫如同打开了的泄洪闸门，描写流行性疾病发展历程的词语开始涌入英语。epidemic（流行病）和pandemic（大流行病）这两个单词，都是在17世纪出现的。Black Plague（“黑色瘟疫”，这么称呼是因为病死者皮肤上出现黑色脓包），其最初使用是在17世纪早期[然而人们更为熟悉的同义名词Black Death（黑死病），出人意料地一直到1755年才出现]。正是在17世纪的这场瘟疫中，德比郡的一个村庄整体选择了“自我孤立”（self-isolate）或“自我隔离”（self-quarantine）;self-quarantine的形容词形式self-quarantined（自我隔绝的），首次使用是在1878年的一份历史文献中，描述了埃亚姆村全体村民的英雄壮举，整个村庄在1665—1666年间自我隔绝以避免传染周围的村镇，结果失去了全村将近三分之一的人口。
随着世界版图的扩大，疾病及其相关词汇也在不断散播。yellow fever（黄热病）出现在1738年，而所谓的Spanish influenza（西班牙流行性感冒）的出现是在1890年[在1918年的大流行期间简写为Spanish flu（西班牙流感）]。poliomyelitis（脊髓灰质炎）出现在1878年[在1911年缩略为polio（俗称“小儿麻痹”）]。这场儿童易染、令父母恐慌的流行病，其疯狂肆虐的顶峰是在第二次世界大战刚刚结束之时。AIDS（艾滋病）一词[全称acquired immune deficiency syndrome（获得性免疫缺陷综合征）]出现在1982年，SARS（非典型肺炎）[全称severe acute respiratory syndrome（严重急性呼吸综合征）]则出现在2003年。 冠状病毒（coronavirus）形似日冕（solar corona），因此得名。早在1968年《自然》杂志发表的一篇论文就描述过这类病毒，但是在2020年之前，除了研究它们的那些科研工作者之外，没多少人听说过这个词语。
我们将一如既往地监测牛津大学出版社的语料库和其他语言数据，以期甄别出与此次大流行病相关的新词和新义项，评估它们使用的频度。OED会持续更新其收词，以期更好地讲述时代的故事，将其深深地镌刻在我们的语言中。
OED lexicographers， who like many others are all working from home （WFH， first attested as a noun in 1995 and as a verb in 2001）， are tracking the development of the language of the pandemic and offering a linguistic and historical context to their usage.
Self-isolation （recorded from 1834） and self-isolating （1841）， now used to describe self-imposed isolation to prevent catching or transmitting an infectious disease， were in the 1800s more often applied to countries which chose to detach themselves politically and economically from the rest of the world.
The current crisis have seen the appearance of genuinely new words， phrases， combinations， and abbreviations which were not necessarily coined for the epidemic， but have seen far wider usage since it began. Infodemic （a portmanteau2 word from information and epidemic） is the outpouring of often unsubstantiated3 media and online information relating to a crisis. The term was coined in 2003 for the SARS epidemic， but has also been used to describe the current proliferation of news around coronavirus. The phrase shelter-in-place， a protocol4 instructing people to find a place of safety in the location they are occupying until the all clear is sounded， was devised as an instruction for the public in 1976 in the event of a nuclear or terrorist attack， but has now been adapted as advice to people to stay indoors to protect themselves and others from coronavirus. Social distancing， first used in 1957， was originally an attitude rather than a physical term， referring to an aloofness5 or deliberate attempt to distance oneself from others socially—now we all understand it as keeping a physical distance between ourselves and others to avoid infection. And an elbow bump， along with a hand slap and high five6， was in its earliest manifestation （1981） a way of conveying celebratory pleasure to a teammate， rather than a means of avoiding hand-touching when greeting a friend， colleague， or stranger. While WFH （working from home） dates from 1995 as mentioned previously， the abbreviation was known to very few before it became a way of life for so many of us. PPE is now almost universally recognized as personal protective （or protection） equipment—an abbreviation dating from 1977 but formerly probably restricted to healthcare and emergency professionals. The full phrase—personal protective equipment—dates from as far back as 1934.
As a historical dictionary， the OED is already full of words that show us how our forebears grappled linguistically with the epidemics they witnessed and experienced. The earliest of these appeared in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries， when the great plague of 1347–50 and its follow-ups， which killed an estimated 40–60 per cent of the population of Europe， must surely have been an ever-present memory and fear. Pestilence， ‘a fatal epidemic or disease’， was borrowed from French and Latin， and first appears in Wycliffe’s bible of a13827， not long after this first great devastation. The related term pest （from French peste） appeared shortly afterwards. Our weakened uses of pest—an insect that infects crops， an annoying person—stem from this original plague usage. Pox （from the plural of ‘pock’， denoting a pustule or the mark it leaves） appeared in 1476 as a term applied to a number of virulently contagious diseases， most especially the dreaded smallpox （first recorded in the 1560s）.
It was the great plagues of the seventeenth century， however， that opened the floodgates for the entry into English of words to describe the experience of epidemic disease. Epidemic and pandemic both appeared in the seventeenth century; the Black Plague （so called from the black pustules that appeared on the skin of the victims） was first used in the early 1600s （although its more familiar synonym Black Death， surprisingly， did not appear until 1755）. It was the seventeenth-century plague that saw a whole village in Derbyshire choose to self-isolate or self-quarantine; the adjective self-quarantined was first applied， in a historical description from 1878， to the story of the heroic population of Eyam， which isolated itself in 1665–6 to avoid infecting the surrounding villages， and lost around a third of its population as a consequence.
As the world expanded， so too did the spread of diseases and their vocabulary. Yellow fever appeared in 1738， and the so-called Spanish influenza in 1890 （reduced to Spanish flu during the great epidemic of 1918）. Poliomyelitis appeared in 1878 （shortened to polio in 1911）， although the epidemic that attacked children especially and struck fear into the heart of parents was at its worst just after WWII. AIDS （acquired immune deficiency syndrome） appeared in 1982， and SARS （severe acute respiratory syndrome） in 2003. The coronaviruses themselves （so-called because they resemble the solar corona） were first described as long ago as 1968 in a paper in Nature， but before 2020 few people had heard of the term beyond the scientists studying them. As we continue to monitor our in-house corpora and other language data to spot new words and senses associated with the pandemic and assess the frequency of their usage， the OED will keep updating its coverage to help tell the story of these times that will inevitably become embedded in our language.
2019冠状病毒病（英文简称Covid-19）肆虐，致使数十亿人生活被改写，一些新词随之进入大众视野，包括来自流行病学和医学领域的专业术语、新的首字母缩略语，以及描述强制隔离和保持社交距离等社会防疫规定的一些单词。词典编纂有一个永恒主题：巨大社会变革带来巨大语言变革，并且这一主题从未像在当下这个全球危机中表现得这般真实。
OED编纂人员也像许多人一样是“居家办公”（working from home，略作WFH。WFH首次确认可作为名词使用是在1995年，可作为动词使用是在2001年），在追踪这个大流行病相关语汇的发展历程，研究其用法的语言学和历史学背景。
self-isolation和self-isolating（意为“自我隔离”）分别于1834年和1841年就有了记载，现在用以描述自我强加的隔离，以防止感染或传播传染性疾病，而在19世纪更经常用以描述某些国家，它们选择在政治和经济上与外部世界隔绝。
在当下的疫情危机中，还出现了一些真正新造的单词、短语、词语组合以及缩略语。这些词语并不一定是为此次新冠病毒疫情而创的，但是自疫情暴发以来它们有了更多的用法。infodemic（信息疫情，由information和epidemic混合而成的单词），是指与某次危机相关而内容往往不实的信息在媒体和网上泛滥。这个词是2003年非典疫情时创造的，但也被用于描述当下正迅猛扩散的有关冠状病毒的新闻。短语shelter-in-place（就地避难）是1976年为防范核攻击或恐怖袭击而制定的一项规则，指导公众在住所当地寻找一个安全之处躲避直至听到警报完全解除，但是现在已经被调整为一项建议——劝告人们待在家中以使自己和他人免受病毒感染。“社交疏远”最初用在1957年，原本是一种态度而非物理距离，指的是交际中冷漠或故意试图与他人疏远，而现在我们都将其理解为自己与他人之间保持物理距离以避免感染。再有“碰肘”，跟用同一只手与对方拍掌再举手相击一样，最早（1981年）是队友之间的庆祝动作，而不像现在成了问候朋友、同事或陌生人时避免用手直接接触的一种方式。
前面提到WFH（居家办公），这一缩略语的出现可以追溯至1995年，然而在它成为我们许多人的生活方式之前，知之者甚少。PPE，现在几乎尽人皆知它是personal protective （or protection） equipment（个人防护装备）的缩略，始于1977年，但是之前可能仅限医疗和急救专业人士使用。该短语的完整形式personal protective equipment则可回溯至1934年。
作为一部具有历史意义的词典，OED早已载满了形形色色的疾病相关词汇，这些词汇展示了我们的前辈如何从语言的角度与他们亲见亲历的流行病一较高下。此类词语最早出现在14世纪晚期和15世纪，1347—1350年间那场造成欧洲40%—60%人口死亡的大瘟疫及其后续问题，也肯定成为了难以摆脱的记忆，无时无刻不令人恐惧。pestilence（瘟疫），即“一种致命的流行病或疾病”，是从法语和拉丁语借来的词语，并且它的首次出现是在1382之前的威克里夫《圣经》版本，也就是第一次瘟疫灾变后不久。随后不久出现了相关词语pest（害虫）（来自法语的peste）。我们对pest一词的那些弱化使用——感染庄稼的害虫，令人讨厌的人——都派生自这个最初对瘟疫的指称。pox（为pock的复数形式，pock是指小脓包或它留下的疤痕）一词出现在1476年，当时可用于指称许多恶性传染病，尤其是特指可怕的天花（最初的记载是在16世纪60年代）。
然而，17世紀那场大瘟疫如同打开了的泄洪闸门，描写流行性疾病发展历程的词语开始涌入英语。epidemic（流行病）和pandemic（大流行病）这两个单词，都是在17世纪出现的。Black Plague（“黑色瘟疫”，这么称呼是因为病死者皮肤上出现黑色脓包），其最初使用是在17世纪早期[然而人们更为熟悉的同义名词Black Death（黑死病），出人意料地一直到1755年才出现]。正是在17世纪的这场瘟疫中，德比郡的一个村庄整体选择了“自我孤立”（self-isolate）或“自我隔离”（self-quarantine）;self-quarantine的形容词形式self-quarantined（自我隔绝的），首次使用是在1878年的一份历史文献中，描述了埃亚姆村全体村民的英雄壮举，整个村庄在1665—1666年间自我隔绝以避免传染周围的村镇，结果失去了全村将近三分之一的人口。
随着世界版图的扩大，疾病及其相关词汇也在不断散播。yellow fever（黄热病）出现在1738年，而所谓的Spanish influenza（西班牙流行性感冒）的出现是在1890年[在1918年的大流行期间简写为Spanish flu（西班牙流感）]。poliomyelitis（脊髓灰质炎）出现在1878年[在1911年缩略为polio（俗称“小儿麻痹”）]。这场儿童易染、令父母恐慌的流行病，其疯狂肆虐的顶峰是在第二次世界大战刚刚结束之时。AIDS（艾滋病）一词[全称acquired immune deficiency syndrome（获得性免疫缺陷综合征）]出现在1982年，SARS（非典型肺炎）[全称severe acute respiratory syndrome（严重急性呼吸综合征）]则出现在2003年。 冠状病毒（coronavirus）形似日冕（solar corona），因此得名。早在1968年《自然》杂志发表的一篇论文就描述过这类病毒，但是在2020年之前，除了研究它们的那些科研工作者之外，没多少人听说过这个词语。
我们将一如既往地监测牛津大学出版社的语料库和其他语言数据，以期甄别出与此次大流行病相关的新词和新义项，评估它们使用的频度。OED会持续更新其收词，以期更好地讲述时代的故事，将其深深地镌刻在我们的语言中。