Don’t Get Oysgezoomt

Image by @twinsfisch for Unsplash

Exhausted by Zoom? Now there’s a word for that: “oysgezoomt.”

That coinage earned third place in the “Zoom-related” category for 2020’s Word of the Year, an annual contest sponsored by the American Dialect Society. This year’s voting took place online. No surprise.

This year’s overall winner was “Covid.” No surprise there, either.

First place in the Zoom-related category went to “You’re muted.”

The Digital Word of the Year was “doomscrolling.”

Oysgemutshet by Zoom

“Oysgezoomt” has a complex etymological lineage that’s rooted in Yiddish, according to a write-up by Larry Yudelson of The Jewish Standard:

Oysgezoomt derives from “Oysgemutshet,” meaning completely exhausted. Oysgemutshet has roots in the Germanic expression “oys,” meaning “completely,” and the Slavic “mutshet,” which is related to the Russian word for martyr.

If there’s a better word for 2020, it hasn’t been invented yet. I’m accepting nominations. Here are my first two candidates, based on a combination of the contest winners:

Oysgecovidst.

Oysgedoomscrollische.

Oy gevalt. I am so ready for 2021.