A decade ago, Brits voted on whether or not to leave the European Union as part of a plan called “Brexit.” The Leave vote prevailed, and Britain’s official withdrawal from the EU happened in January 2020 after completing a withdrawal agreement between the two entities.

Since the British exit from the EU, there has been debate about whether it’s good for the country when it comes to issues like travel, finance, and trade. But one thing has remained the same: it’s still called “Brexit.”

From before the actual vote on June 23, 2016, to a decade after, Brexit is still used to refer to the issues surrounding whether, and then when, Great Britain would withdraw from the European Union. But who came up with the actual word “Brexit” to describe it in the first place?

The Greek Origins of Brexit

Greece was facing several economic issues in 2012 due to its government debt, causing turmoil in Europe and raising the possibility of Greece leaving the European Union. A chief economist at the bank Citigroup by the name of Willem Buiter gave Greece’s potential departure a moniker by combining the country’s name with the word “exit” to call the situation a “Grexit.”

Only a few months later, the term was adjusted for economic policy issues in Great Britain, and Greece’s “Grexit” became Britain’s “Brexit.” Taking a cue from the Citigroup bankers, the new British portmanteau was officially coined by Peter Wilding, a solicitor working on EU policy for the Conservative Party under David Cameron.

Wilding, who was working for a British think tank at the time, wrote an article stating, “Unless a clear view is pushed that Britain must lead in Europe at the very least to achieve the completion of the single market, then the portmanteau for Greek euro exit might be followed by another sad word, Brexit.”

Wilding later said he forgot about using the word until the Oxford English Dictionary called him at the end of 2016, months after the vote had taken place, to congratulate him on creating the word “Brexit,” which was word of the year. But when asked if he was thrilled with the honor, he decidedly was not.

“No,” he said in a 2018 article. “Not least because you can imagine being the leading Remainer before the referendum and gifting the Leavers their catchy trigger to unleash the demons that followed!”

Wilding supported remaining in the EU, which ended up being on the losing side of the Brexit referendum. Cameron, who was serving as prime minister at the time, also supported remaining but gave the country a chance to have a say in the matter. They voted to leave, and Cameron ended up resigning after the vote took place.

What Could’ve Been Linguistically

The word “Brexit” is a portmanteau, which is when you combine two or more words to become one. Famous portmanteaus include “brunch,” combining breakfast and lunch, or “romcom” to describe a romance-comedy. Former celebrity couple Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were famously known as “Bennifer,” a portmanteau of their names.

In Britain, the word “Brexit” was adopted, but it wasn’t the only possible moniker to describe Britain’s potential exit from the EU.

“Brixit” was an early version of the word that didn’t catch on the way its cousin with an “E” instead of an “I” did. Those who supported remaining in the EU rather than Brexiting tried using “Bremain” to promote their position, but it didn’t seem to have the same staying power.

Now that it’s been 10 years since the vote for Brexit, new words have cropped up to describe the disappointment in the decision, such as “Bregret” and “Regrexit.”

More Like This: