“Toxic” which originally means poisonous and first appeared in English in the mid-seventeenth century from the medieval Latin toxicus, meaning “poisoned” or “imbued with poison,” was chosen by Oxford Dictionaries as Word of the Year after it transcended its original meaning, scope, and application.
Oxford said toxic “added many strings to its poisoned bow becoming an intoxicating descriptor for the year’s most talked about topics. It is the sheer scope of its application, as found by our research, that made toxic the stand-out choice for the Word of the Year title.”
The word, according to Oxford, had a 45 percent increase in the number of times it was looked up on the Oxford Dictionary website, and through 2018, was used in various contexts, such as to describe a poisonous relationship, an environment, often in reference to a harmful workplace, and even masculinity.
Toxic beat other contenders such as “gaslighting,” “incel,” “big dick energy,” and “cakeism.”
