The Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year is “toxic”. So that's depressing. But it's understandable as we seem to be living in toxic times. But just why did the Oxford English Dictionary choose “toxic” as 2018’s word of the year?

《牛津英语词典》今年的年度词汇是“toxic”（有毒的），这很令人沮丧。但这也可以理解，因为我们似乎生活在有毒的年代。只是为什么《牛津英语词典》会选择“toxic”作为2018年的年度词汇呢？

According to OED's blog post: The Oxford Word of the Year is a word or expression that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the passing year, and have lasting potential as a term of cultural significance.

《牛津英语词典》在博客中指出：牛津年度词汇是能够反映过去一年里人们的道德观、情绪或关注点的词汇或表达，而且它可能会有持久的文化意义。

In 2018, 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.

2018年“toxic”在“有毒的”这个词条的基础上增加了许多词目而成为描述今年最热门话题的一个迷人的符号。我们的研究发现，这绝对属于它的应用范围，也使它在今年的年度词汇角逐中脱颖而出。

Our data shows that, along with a 45% rise in the number of times it has been looked up on oxforddictionaries.com, over the last year the word toxic has been used in an array of contexts, both in its literal and more metaphorical senses.

我们的数据显示，在过去的一年里，通过牛津词典网站搜索“toxic”这个词的次数增长了45%，而且这个词的字面含义以及其隐喻含义都被应用在各种背景中。

But while “toxic” may be a bit of a downer for word of the year, at least the runner-ups didn’t take the crown. Some of those runner-ups included:Gaslighting, Incel, Techlash, Overtourism.

虽然“toxic”成为年度词汇也许让人有些悲哀，但至少年度词汇的第二名并没有超过它。排在其之后的热门词汇有：Gaslighting（煤气灯光）、Incel（非自愿独身者）、Techlash（对大型科技巨头公司的批评与抵制）、OverTourism（过度旅游）。

（翻译：Dlacus）