A viral TikTok trend that is “very demure, very mindful” has become Dictionary’s 2024 Word of the Year.
Dictionary made the announcement earlier this week, stating “the Word of the Year isn’t just about popular usage; it reveals the stories we tell about ourselves and how we’ve changed over the year.”
To select the 2024 Word of the Year, our lexicographers analyzed 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 behavior in various contexts, such as at work or on a plane. This increased focus on public appearance and behavior 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.
Other words on the shortlist were Brainrot, Brat, Extreme Weather, Midwest nice, Weird.
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