permacrisis

A permacrisis is a crisis that never seems to end, or a long run of one crisis after another: a pandemic, then a war, then inflation, then the next thing. Collins Dictionary made it its Word of the Year in 2022.

What permacrisis means

Wiktionary defines it simply as a permanent crisis, one that drags on. In everyday use it describes the feeling of living through constant upheaval, where emergencies stop feeling like emergencies and start feeling like the weather.

It’s close to, but not the same as, polycrisis: lots of crises happening at once and making each other worse. Permacrisis is about time (it never ends). Polycrisis is about overlap (it’s everything at once).

Examples

• “Every year feels like a permacrisis now.”
• “News fatigue is what permacrisis does to you.”
• “Their economy has been in permacrisis for a decade.”

Where it came from

Perma-, as in permanent, plus crisis. The word isn’t new; Wiktionary cites it in academic writing from the 1990s, including work by political scientist John Zysman and sociologist Manuel Castells. It went mainstream in 2022, when Collins named it Word of the Year during a period of high inflation and political turmoil in Europe.

Related terms

• Doomscrolling: endless scrolling through bad news.
• Vibecession: when the economy feels worse than the data.
• Doom spending: spending to cope with bad news.
• Doom posting: posting gloomy predictions online.

More words about work, money and the economy are in our work and money slang guide.