UK
Just last year the word vape not only made it into the online edition of the venerable Oxford Dictionary as a legitimate verb, but was also declared as its international “Word of the Year 2014”, since language research conducted by Oxford Dictionaries editors had revealed that use of the word “vape” in 2014 had more than doubled compared to 2013.
Now, vapers are celebrating another victory as more popular terms make it into the dictionary for 2015. This year the noun e-cigarette was added. It is defined as a “cigarette-shaped device containing a nicotine-based liquid or other substance that is vaporized and inhaled, used to simulate the experience of smoking”. The word’s usage can be traced back to 2007.
For almost as long as electronic cigarettes have been in existence, they have been known as e-cigarettes, or e-cigs. So it may have seemed a little ridiculous to some that ‘vape’ made it into the dictionary before the words used to describe the device itself. Nevertheless, in June e-cig and e-cigarette were two of the 500 words that made it into the Oxford English Dictionary.