'NFT' Hailed As 'Word Of The Year' By Collins Dictionary, Beating 'Crypto,' 'Cheugy' To Top Spot

NFT is a term that has conquered not only the world's collective psyche but also major dictionaries.

For this one, the Collins Dictionary hailed NFT as the 2021 Word Of The Year, joining two other major tech terms in dominating the dictionary's top words list: crypto and metaverse, reports Mashable.

Here is the official announcement from Collins Dictionary on Twitter:

In the dictionary, NFT or non-fungible token is officially defined as a "unique digital certificate" connected to a blockchain-primarily used to prove the ownership of an asset like artworks or other collectibles.

NFT also beat out other terms like "cheugy," popularized by Gen-Z youngsters. For the uninitiated, "cheugy" refers to someone out-of-date who tries too hard to be "hip" or current, as per The New York Times.

According to CNN, the acronym (which isn't exactly a "word," per se) follows "lockdown," which Collins named Word of the Year for 2020.

To round up the dictionary's list of 2021's biggest words, here are the most noteworthy:

• Climate anxiety: defines mental distress due to climate change
• Regencycore: a style of fashion derived from the 1810s, which is the era when the popular period drama "Bridgerton" is set
• Pingdemic: refers to a large-scale delivery of notifications to the general public courtesy of a contact tracing app

The NFT Trend And Its Path To World Domination

To say that the term NFT is the "hip" thing to be aware of these days is a massive understatement. Furthermore, those who play their cards right can actually make a lot of money dealing with these digital assets.

NFTs are now a roughly $1.5 billion industry after experiencing a 26x volume growth year-on-year compared to the first quarter of last year.

In other words, the term itself was barely in the minds of folks just a year before. And now, it seems like everybody is mentioning it or dealing in it--especially A-list celebrities.

As a result of its popularity, NFT trading has become a lucrative source of income for a lot of people. Several non-fungible tokens sold within the past year were among the most valuable assets ever sold, with prices regularly being in the multi-millions.

One perfect example is a digital artwork by an artist named Mike "Beeple" Winkelman, which was sold by Christie's for an insane $69 million, reports the BBC. This put Beeple among the three most valuable living artists in the world, according to Christie's.

Another example is the original source code for the World Wide Web (aka the internet you know and love), which was sold by its creator, Tim Berners-Lee.

Packaged as an NFT and originally listed at a $1,000 starting bid, the source code was eventually sold for a cool $5.4 million by Sotheby's to a private collector, reports Reuters.

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Written by RJ Pierce