Photo: A still of Jools Lebron’s TikTok video, which caused the skyrocketing of the word “demure”, Dictionary.com’s chosen Word of the Year. It was also shortlisted for Word of the Year by two other dictionaries.
Words of the Year have become a fun tradition, where dictionaries pick an official word that has had a great cultural impact, having been used/ searched for significantly over the timespan. They provide a glimpse into culture, current affairs, social media discourse, pop culture, and act as a linguistic time-capsule of sorts. Here are the main dictionaries and their words of the year, along with their (summarised) reasoning, along with the runners-up. Naturally, there is a bit of overlap.
“Brain rot” – Oxford University Press
Meaning and reasoning: “Supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also; something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.”
Oxford’s language experts created a shortlist of six words to reflect the moods and conversations that have helped shape the past year. After two weeks of public voting and widespread conversation, they came together to consider the public’s input, voting results, and our language data, before declaring “brain rot” as the definitive Word of the Year for 2024.
The experts noticed that “brain rot” gained new prominence in 2024 as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024.
The first recorded use of “brain rot” was found in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden, which reports his experiences of living a simple lifestyle in the natural world. As part of his conclusions, Thoreau criticizes society’s tendency to devalue complex ideas, or those that can be interpreted in multiple ways, in favour of simple ones, and sees this as indicative of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort: “While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”
The term has taken on new significance in the digital age, especially over the past 12 months. Initially gaining traction on social media platform – particularly on TikTok among Gen Z and Gen Alpha communities – “brain rot” is now seeing more widespread use, such as in mainstream journalism, amidst societal concerns about the negative impact of overconsuming online content.
In 2024, “brain rot” is used to describe both the cause and effect of this, referring to low-quality, low-value content found on social media and the internet, as well as the subsequent negative impact that consuming this type of content is perceived to have on an individual or society.
It has also been used more specifically and consistently in reference to online culture. Often used in a humorous or self-deprecating manner by online communities, it is strongly associated with certain types of content – including creator Alexey Gerasimov’s viral Skibidi Toilet video series, featuring humanoid toilets, and user-generated “only in Ohio” memes, which reference bizarre incidents in the state.
This content has given rise to emerging “brain rot language” – such as “skibidi”, meaning something nonsensical, and “Ohio”, meaning something embarrassing or weird – which reflects a growing trend of words originating in viral online culture before spreading offline into the “real world”.
Shortlisted: Demure, Dynamic pricing, Lore, Romantasy, Slop
“Polarization” – Merriam-Webster
Meaning and reasoning: Merriam-Webster’s 2024 Word of the Year is polarization, which happens to be one idea that both sides of the political spectrum agree on. Search volume on Merriam-Webster.com throughout the year reflected the desire of Americans to better understand the complex state of affairs in our country and around the world.
This dictionary defines polarization as “division into two sharply distinct opposites; especially, a state in which the opinions, beliefs, or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum but become concentrated at opposing extremes.”
The word was widely used across the media landscape. Fox News reported that “Vance's debate answer on immigration crisis shows voter polarization,” while MSNBC observed that, “The 2024 presidential election has left our country more polarized than ever.” The word was also used to describe divides beyond the U.S. election, as when Forbes warned that in workplaces, “cultural polarization is becoming a pressing challenge.”
Polarization, and the verb polarize, date back to the early 1800s, when they first described light waves. That physical meaning of polarize – “to cause to vibrate in a definite pattern” – led to the political and cultural meaning that helps define the world today.
The polar in polarization is from Latin polaris, which describes the Earth’s poles. Polaris is also a name for the North Star.
Shortlisted: Totality, Demure, Fortnight, Pander, Resonate, Weird, Cognitive, Democracy
“Manifest” – The Cambridge Dictionary
Meaning and reasoning: “To use methods such as visualization and affirmation to help you imagine achieving something you want, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen.”
Manifest was looked up almost 130,000 times on the Cambridge Dictionary website, making it one of the most viewed words of 2024.
Why would a fairly formal 600-year-old word that means “to show something clearly” suddenly become so popular? In 2024, the word manifest jumped from being mainly used in the self-help community and on social media to being mentioned widely across mainstream media.
When famous performers, star athletes, and influential entrepreneurs claim they have achieved something because they manifested it, they are using this verb in a more recent sense: to use specific practices to focus your mind on something you want, to try to make it become a reality.
The use of this sense of “manifest” has gained in popularity with the increasing number of “manifesting influencers” promoting this scientifically unproven practice on social media – so much so that it was added to the Cambridge Dictionary in May of 2023.
From late July to early September 2024, the Olympics and Paralympics brought worldwide attention to manifesting, with gold medal winners like Simone Biles, Ezra Frech, and Mallory Weggemann attributing their achievement to the practice.
Earlier in the year, fans of Sabrina Carpenter called her a “manifesting queen” for her Eras Tour appearance with Taylor Swift; and Dua Lipa said she manifested her concert for a crowd of more than 100,000 at the Glastonbury Festival.
Lookups of manifest increased around the date of 8/8/2024, which was considered a particularly powerful day for manifesting, keeping the many podcasts, blogs, and social media feeds buzzing with advice about how to “manifest your best life”, especially in financial terms.
“When we choose a Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year, we have three considerations: user data, zeitgeist, and language. What word was looked up the most, or spiked? Which one really captures what was happening in that year? And what is interesting about this word from a language point of view? Manifest won this year because it increased notably in lookups, its use widened greatly across all types of media, and it shows how the meanings of a word can change over time.” ––Wendalyn Nichols, Publishing Manager
Shortlisted: Brat, Ecotarian, Resilience
“Demure” – Dictionary.com
Meaning and reasoning: To select the 2024 Word of the Year, Dictionary.com’s lexicographers analysed a large amount of data including newsworthy headlines, trends on social media, search engine results and more, to identify words that made an impact on our conversations, online and in the real world.
The word demure experienced a meteoric rise in usage in 2024. Between January and the end of August, this term saw a nearly 1200% increase in usage in digital web media alone. This sharp rise is mainly attributed to TikToker Jools Lebron’s popularization of the phrase “very demure; very mindful” in a series of videos posted to the platform in early August.
Though the term demure has traditionally been used to describe those who are reserved, quiet, or modest, a new usage has spread through social media – one used to describe refined and sophisticated appearance or behaviour in various contexts, such as at work or on a plane. This increased focus on public appearance and behaviour comes at a time when employees are increasingly returning to offices after hybrid remote work following the pandemic.
The rise and spread of the term on social media resulted in a similar increase in search interest on Google. Between August 2023 and July 2024, there was no significant trend in the usage of the word demure. By the week of August 18, 2024, however, there was almost 14 times more interest in the term, highlighting the term’s almost overnight explosion in popularity. At the peak of the trend, demure had 200 times more searches on Dictionary.com than it did on dates preceding August.
Shortlisted: Brainrot, Brat, Extreme weather, Midwest nice, Weird
“Brat” – Collins
Meaning and reasoning: “Brat”, newly defined in 2024 as “characterized by a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude”, has been named Collins' Word of the Year 2024. Inspired by the Charli XCX album, “brat” has become one of the most talked about words of 2024. More than a hugely successful album, “brat” is a cultural phenomenon that has resonated with people globally, and “brat summer” established itself as an aesthetic and a way of life.
Shortlisted: Brainrot, Era, Looksmaxxing, Rawdogging, Anti-tourism, Delulu, Romantasy, Supermajority, Yapping
