Oxford's lexicographers keep watch over billions of words every month — from literary novels to academic journals to blogs — and at the end of the year, they put their brainy heads together to select a single word that best embodies the zeitgeist.
Out of this year's numerous nominees, Oxford's word of the year for 2014 is vape.
According to Oxford's calculations, usage of vape more than doubled between 2013 and 2014.
Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford's dictionaries division, tells TIME, "Vape only really caught on a few years ago and now we've seen a dramatic rise."