Why Permacrisis is the Collins Dictionary Word of the Year

The dictionary defines permacrisis as an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially resulting from a series of catastrophic events. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Record-breaking temperatures, devastating floods, weak economies, ongoing Covid-19 infections, a ruinous war in Ukraine, and heightened inequality. It’s been quite a year, and it isn’t even over yet. Under these circumstances, the Collins English Dictionary recently announced an entirely appropriate word of the year for 2022: permacrisis.

The dictionary defines permacrisis as an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially resulting from a series of catastrophic events. As writer and editor David Shariatmadari says, “it perfectly embodies the dizzying sense of lurching from one unprecedented event to another, as we wonder bleakly what new horrors might be around the corner”.

To select their words of the year, the editors at Collins trawl through a database of billions of words. At regular intervals, they also analyse other sources such as newspapers and social media feeds to look for neologisms and signs of increased usage.

This year, “there hasn’t been a huge amount to celebrate,” said Helen Newstead, a language content consultant at Collins Dictionary, to the Washington Post. That could well be the understatement of 2022. The dictionary’s chosen word, then, captures “the way we’re all feeling at the moment, sadly”.

Permacrisis was chosen from ten words and phrases on a shortlist, six of which are new additions to the dictionary. Among them: splooting, the act of lying flat on one’s stomach with legs stretched out; sportswashing, the sponsorship or promotion of sporting events to enhance a tarnished reputation; and lawfare, the use of legal proceedings to intimidate or hinder an opponent. Brave new world.

Also included is the much-discussed quiet quitting, when employees only perform the functions they are contracted to do, and not a jot more. Among the most popular pastimes of 2022, if media reports are to be believed.
Permacrisis, then, is a word that sums up the situation.

As a prefix, perma comes from a Proto-Indo-European root that roughly means “to remain”, indicating a fixed state. It’s most often found in the word permanent, and also shows up in permafrost - although with reports of a thawing Siberian tundra, we may soon have to think of a new word for it. Fleeting frost, perhaps.

Earlier this year, historian and economist Adam Tooze popularised a similar word: polycrisis. “A problem becomes a crisis when it challenges our ability to cope and thus threatens our identity,” he wrote in the Financial Times in September. In a polycrisis, however, “the shocks are disparate, but they interact so that the whole is even more overwhelming than the sum of the parts”.

Tooze suggests that the current polycrisis has been growing for quite a few years. Nowadays, it’s compounded by “the growing anxiety that economic and social development are hurtling us towards catastrophic ecological tipping points”. Unless we address underlying trends, our tightrope walk above the abyss is going to become more fraught, with no short-term solutions.

If words of the year are indicators of our collective experience, we’ve come a long way in a short while. In 2014, for example, the Collins word of the year was photobomb. The next year, it was binge-watch. Fun times. After that came indicators of our present predicament, with words such as Brexit, fake news and lockdown.

Similarly, among the Oxford English Dictionary’s words for the last few years were toxic, post-truth, and climate emergency. Last year, it was vax, showing up in terms such as double-vaxxed, unvaxxed and anti-vaxxer. At the time of writing, they hadn’t yet announced their word for 2022. Until they do so, it’s instructive to see how many words added to the dictionary this year reflect the state of the world today.

Among the OED’s new entries are energy poverty, defined as the condition of being unable to afford or obtain energy resources to fulfil the basic needs of a household or population. Medical indigency also appears for the first time, referring to the state of a person who lacks the wherewithal to receive or afford medical treatment.

Then, there’s side hustle, in the sense of my-salary-won’t-pay-the-bills. Finally and inevitably, there’s the word influencer. The situation is dire.
So we beat on, boats against the current, as Nick Carraway warned us. Given the global levels of squabbling, denialism, and polarisation, perhaps the word for next year will be the title of José Saramago’s famous novel: Blindness.