Vape is Oxford's 2014 Word of the Year
(Image credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Drumroll, please...Oxford has decided that the word of the year is "vape."

To vape is to inhale and exhale the vapor produced by an electronic cigarette. It's not a new word; as Time reports, it was first used in the 1980s when companies began to create prototypes of smokeless cigarettes. The word exploded over the past year, with Oxford figuring its usage more than doubled between 2013 and 2014.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.