Both Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster made a rather obvious choice for their word of the year choices, selecting “pandemic” for the honor, according to the Associated Press.

“Often the big news story has a technical word that’s associated with it and in this case, the word pandemic is not just technical but has become general. It’s probably the word by which we’ll refer to this period in the future,” said Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster.

Each organization considered words that not only have characterize the overarching flavor of the year, but are supported by the number of searches for the word online. 

The World Health Organization declared a worldwide pandemic in March, prompting a push in people looking for the technical definition of the word.

Senior research editor John Kelly at Dictionary.com told the AP the word pandemic has roots in Latin and the Greek pandemos, meaning “common, public.” Breaking it down further, “pan” means “all” and “demos” means “people.” As evidenced in a medical text by a Dutch-born physician, Gideon Harvey, pandemic entered English in the 1660s in the medical sense, Kelly said. He noted that “demos” is also the basis for the word democracy.

Dictionary.com saw a spike in searches for words relating to social justice, fascism and “defund” after the homicide of George Floyd in Minnepolis.

Merriam-Webster said their runners-up included coronavirus, quarantine, asymptomatic, mamba, kraken, defund, antebellum, irregardless, icon, schadenfreude and malarkey.

Neither source mentioned the word “shitshow” as a finalist.