English words of the year 2024

It’s something of a tradition here on the Grammaticus blog to start the New Year with a lexicographical recap of the previous year. If you’ve missed it in the news, here’s an overview of the words that marked the year 2024, chosen by the leading dictionary publishers from the English-speaking world.

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The Collins Word of the Year 2024 was “brat.” Its standard meaning – a badly behaving child – has been recently updated to reflect its current usage as an adjective: “characterized by a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude.” The publisher has referred to the album titled Brat by Charli XCX as a major influence: “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.”

Other words shortlisted by Collins were: 

• brainrot (noun): “an inability to think clearly caused by excessive consumption of low-quality online content”
• era (noun): “a period of one’s life or career that is of a distinctive character”
• looksmaxxing (noun): “attempting to maximize the attractiveness of one’s physical appearance”
• rawdogging (noun): “the act of undertaking an activity without preparation, support, or equipment”
• anti-tourism (noun): “opposition to or action against large-scale tourism”
• delulu (adjective): “utterly mistaken or unrealistic in one’s ideas or expectations”
• romantasy (noun): “a literary genre that combines romantic fiction with fantasy”
• supermajority (noun): “a large majority in a legislative assembly that enables a government to pass laws without effective scrutiny”
• yapping (noun): “talking at length, especially about inconsequential matters”

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Dictionary.com had some of the same words on their shortlist, as you’ll see below, but their final choice was the adjective “demure.” This word saw an explosive, overnight rise in usage in 2024, largely thanks to a series of TikTok posts by Jools Lebron (you know the ones – “very demure, very mindful”). Similar to “brat”, this word has also somewhat changed its meaning thanks to the social media: originally meaning “reserved, quiet and modest”, it has comes to refer to “refined and sophisticated appearance or behavior in various contexts.”

Here are the other words Dictionary.com had on their radar:

• brainrot (noun): “the effects of spending too much time consuming low-quality content on social media”
• brat (noun): “confidently rebellious, unapologetically bold, and playfully defiant”
• extreme weather (noun): “a period of weather or a weather event that is severe and unexpected or abnormal for the location or season in which it occurs”
• Midwest nice (adjective): “a courteous and agreeable manner, often involving self-deprecation, politeness, and avoidance of conflict”
• weird (adjective): “strange, odd, bizarre”

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Based on the number of lookups, the Merriam-Webster lexicographers chose the word “polarization,” and it isn’t difficult to see why. The year 2024 was the election year in the U.S., and the word got to be used in the media and the general public even more than usual. Polarization is defined 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.”

“Weird” and “demure” were also shortlisted by Merriam-Webster, along with the following words:

• totality (noun), in reference to the Moon: “the phase of an eclipse during which it is total; the state of total eclipse”
• fortnight(noun): “a period of 14 days; two weeks” – Taylor Swift fans will know why the word was so popular in 2024
• pander(verb): “to say, do, or provide what someone wants or demands even though it is not proper, good, or reasonable)
• resonate (verb): “to affect or appeal to someone in a personal or emotional way”
• allision (noun): “the act or an instance of a ship striking a stationary object”
• cognitive (adjective): “of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering)”
• democracy (noun): “government by the people : rule of the majority”

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Saving the Oxford English Dictionary for last, because their word of the year matches my personal choice. It’s “brain rot”, defined as follows: “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.” I don’t know about you, but I strongly feel there’s no word that describes the previous year better than that one.

Here’s the rest of the OED shortlist:

• demure (adjective): “of a person: reserved or restrained in appearance or behaviour. Of clothing: not showy, ostentatious, or overly revealing”
• dynamic pricing (noun): “the practice of varying the price for a product or service to reflect changing market conditions; in particular, the charge of a higher price at a time of greater demand”
• lore(noun): “a body of (supposed) facts, background information, and anecdotes relating to someone or something, regarded as knowledge required for full understanding or informed discussion of the subject in question”
• romantasy(noun): a genre of fiction combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy, typically featuring themes of magic, the supernatural, or adventure, alongside a central romantic storyline”
• slop(noun): “art, writing, or other content generated using artificial intelligence, shared and distributed online in an indiscriminate or intrusive way, and characterized as being of low quality, inauthentic or inaccurate”

You can visit the OED Word of the Year 2024 web page, and read very interesting summaries on the origin of each of these words, along with short explanations as to how and why these particular words were shortlisted.

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What’s your personal Word of the Year 2024? Tell us about it in the comments section below!

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NOTES

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COVER IMAGE CREDIT

Felicia Montenegro via Unsplash