Pope Francis has his picture taken inside St Peter’s Basilica with Italian youths

London, Nov. 19 (Reuters): “Selfie” — a self portrait usually on a smartphone or webcam — was selected word of the year today by Oxford Dictionaries, based on a 17,000 per cent rise in its use from a year ago.

“Selfie” was chosen after it “gained momentum throughout the English-speaking world in 2013 as it evolved from a social media buzzword to mainstream shorthand for a self-portrait photograph”, Oxford Dictionaries said in a statement. The spike in popularity of the word, whose origin can be traced back to an Australian online forum in 2002, was based on “language research conducted by Oxford Dictionaries editors”, the publisher said.

“Selfie” beat a number of other buzzwords of 2013, including “twerk” referring to dancing in a sexually provocative manner and which was popularised by singer Miley Cyrus at the MTV Video Music Awards last August.

“The Word of the Year need not have been coined within the past 12 months and it does not have to be a word that will stick around for a good length of time,” Judy Pearsall, editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries, said.

“Selfie” has spawned a raft of spinoffs, including “helfie” for a picture taken of someone’s own hair, “belfie” for taking a picture of your own posterior and “drelfie” for a self portrait while in a drunken state.