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Anderhalvemetersamenleving is Van Dale’s word of 2020

December 15, 2020
Sign in Amsterdam's Vondelpark Coronavirus COVID-19 October 2020 Credit: DutchNews.nl
An illustration for word of the year. Photo: DutchNews.nl

Anderhalvemetersamenleving, or one-and-a-half-meter-society, is this year’s word of the year, according to the makers of the Van Dale dictionaries.

Anderhalvemetersamenleving took almost 30% of the vote in the poll, which was dominated by words related to coronavirus. In total, 12,000 people took part in the vote.

Second on the list was fabeltjesfuik (nonsense trap) which was invented by comedian Arjen Lubach to indicate the online parallel world inhabited by conspiracy theorists. It took 11% of the vote.

In third place was viruswappie used to describe people who deny the seriousness of the pandemic.

Last year’s winner was boomer.

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