selfie

Where does the word "selfie" come from? It comes from Australian English selfie, and was adopted directly into English (2013).

Selfie’s story begins in Australian English: selfie meant “self-portrait photo.” First recorded in a 2002 post on an ABC online forum by a man apologising for a blurry photo of his injured lip, 'it was a selfie'; Australian English loves -ie endings like barbie. It reached English by 2013 as selfie. Front-facing phone cameras made it global, and Oxford Dictionaries chose it as Word of the Year for 2013. Today, selfie means a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone.

1. Stage 1 · Australian English · 2002 selfie "self-portrait photo", first recorded in a 2002 post on an ABC online forum by a man apologising for a blurry photo of his injured lip, 'it was a selfie'; Australian English loves -ie endings like barbie.
2. Stage 2 · English · 2013 selfie "self-taken photo", front-facing phone cameras made it global, and Oxford Dictionaries chose it as Word of the Year for 2013.