I’d been wondering more than usual this year as to what Oxford Dictionaries would announce as its word of the year. The reason is that I don’t think it has been a vintage year for words. I’ve been struggling to think of a new word coined this year that has really taken off, and this has been my least productive year since opening the virtual files of Wordability.

So it’s not a surprise that Oxford’s choice this year is not a word coined in 2014, and it’s not a surprise that the word was nigh on impossible to predict. The Oxford experts have plumped for Vape.

Vape is both a noun and a verb associated with electronic cigarettes. As a verb it means to inhale and exhale the vapour produced by an electronic cigarette, while the noun refers to either the electronic device itself or the act of inhaling or exhaling the vapour produced.

Explaining the choice, Judy Pearsall, Editorial Director for Oxford Dictionaries, said: “As vaping has gone mainstream, with celebrities from Lindsay Lohan to Barry Manilow giving it a go, and with growing public debate on the public dangers and the need for regulation, so the language usage of the word ‘vape’ and related terms in 2014 has shown a marked increase.” That marked increase has seen usage of the word more than double over the last 12 months.

Other contenders were Bae, a term of endearment for one’s partner; Budtender, someone who dispenses cannabis; Contactless, relating to payments taken from cards or phones; Indyref, the Scottish Referendum; Normcore, ordinary clothes worn as a fashion statement; and Slacktivism, online participation for a cause but requiring little effort.

The real question for me is whether Vape really sums up 2014? Recent choices like Selfie and Omnishambles really summed up the mood of the year, they were great choices because they acted as a commentary on the 12 months they represented.

I can’t feel the same about Vape. When I think about 2014, Vape will not come to mind as a word that really captures the mood and spirit of the age. Rather it serves as a reminder of one particular development. Nonetheless, it could be the best of a bad bunch, as not only have great new words not emerged, actually capturing a sense of what the year has been all about has been strangely elusive in 2014.

And maybe that makes Vape a better and more profound choice than I first realised. It’s kind of unreal, ethereal even, and fake. Maybe a year that has been hard to sum up deserves a word of the year that relates to something which is a replacement for the real thing.