Australian frustration over the vaccine rollout has inspired the Australian National Dictionary Centre's word of the year.
Strollout, the slow implementation of the COVID-19 vaccination program, was chosen from a long list of words and phrases used in a year where the virus dominated discussion.
Each year the centre selects a word or expression which gained prominence in the Australian landscape.
Director Dr Amanda Laugesen said it was inevitably words related to the vaccine rollout would be in the running this year.
"The Australian term strollout captured this mood," she said.
"It's also captured a very particular moment in our nation's history. The pandemic has had a profound impact on our society and lives."
The term even made its way into international publications like The Washington Post.
The full 2021 shortlist included:
- double-vaxxed: having received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
- Clayton's lockdown: a lockdown considered to be inadequate to slow the rate of COVID-19 community transmission.
- Fortress Australia: Australia regarded as a country protected and isolated from other countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- AUKUS: a security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States centred on the Indo-Pacific region.
- net zero: a target of offsetting the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity through reduction measures.
Dr Laugeson said these became part of Australians' everyday language this year.
"As the Delta strain of COVID-19 spread around Australia the urgency of vaccinating the population became clear, with words like vaccination hubs, vaccine hesitancy, vaccine passports, vaccine rollout, and double-vaxxed gaining prominence," she said.
