Ljubljana - The word as well as sign language gesture of the year 2021 is PCT, the abbreviation for the recovered-vaccinated-tested rule, the ZRC research centre at the Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences announced on Wednesday.

PCT received most votes from the public, and was closely followed by the word water, another expression that left an indelible mark on last year as a result of the July referendum, which rejected the new waters act, and a high-profile campaign that preceded it. In third place is the word anti-vaxxer.

Votes could be cast between 3 January and noon today, and there was a selection of ten expressions, the majority of which were related to Covid or the pandemic.

The Research Centre had received 250 different nominations this year, with most of them again being associated with the pandemic, said linguist Simona Klemenčič, one of the experts involved in the project.

The shortlisted words were then picked by the Research Centre, the public broadcaster's news portal MMC and the association of the deaf and hard-of-hearing. The total number of votes cast was over 4,100 in what is the sixth word of the year project.

The word 'koronijec' has been given an honorary mention. The expression denotes a person who belongs to the generation of people born during the coronavirus pandemic.

The sign language gesture of the year was meanwhile declared for the third year in a row. The gesture of 2020 was the sign for coronavirus, whereas the word of last year was quarantine.