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“NFT” is named word of the year by the Collins dictionary

“NFT”, the English abbreviation for “non-fungible token”, was named the Word of the Year by the dictionary publisher Collins, surpassing the competitors “crypto” and the neologism “cheugy”.

An NFT is “a unique digital certificate, registered on a blockchain, that is used to register the unique ownership of an asset, such as a work of art or a collectible,” according to a Collins blog post, published on Wednesday. fair (24).

Acting as virtual signatures, NFTs prove the authenticity of a work of art, as the blockchain serves as incorruptible proof of ownership, meaning that “original” artworks and their owners can always be identified through the blockchain, even if an image or video is widely replicated.

They also provide scarcity and, as a result, the digital art market is booming.

In March, a digital artwork called “Everydays: The First 5000 days” was sold for $69.3 million by the company Christie’s, making its creator, graphic designer Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, one of the most living artists alive. of the art market.

The idea of ​​a digital revolution is also captured in another dictionary candidate for Word of the Year: “crypto,” short for “cryptocurrency,” digital money that is challenging traditional forms of money, according to publisher Collins.

The publisher also cited “metaverse” in its blog post, following Facebook’s announcement that it would change its corporate name to Meta.

Other selected words reflect the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, such as “double-vaxxed”, an English term used to define who received the two doses of Covid-19 vaccine, and “hybrid work” were on the list.

“Climate anxiety” reflects growing concern about the damage humans are doing to the planet, while “neopronoun” is a way of referring to a person without using their name or traditional gender markers such as “he” and “she ”.

Rounding out the list are “Regencycore”, which is defined as a fashion aesthetic inspired by the Georgian-era clothing seen in the Netflix series “Bridgerton”, and “cheugy”, which is a neologism used to say that something is out of date or not. it’s cool, a mix of “tacky” and “cringe”.

In 2020, the Collins dictionary named “lockdown” its Word of the Year, for obvious reasons, and earlier this month, the Oxford dictionary ​​made “vax” its choice for 2021.

Defined as “an English colloquialism meaning vaccine or vaccination as a noun and vaccinate as a verb,” “vax” was relatively rare until this year, said the company, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary.

In September, the term “vax” appeared more than 72 times more often than in the previous year, said the Oxford dictionary, which analyzes news content to track changes in the English language.

* Translated material. Read the original here.

Reference: CNN Brasil

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