There are certainly some words we all heard a lot of in 2024, and now Dictionary.com has declared its pick for Word of the Year: demure.
Demure, defined as “characterized by shyness and modesty; reserved,” exploded in popularity in 2024 thanks to TikToker Jools Lebron, who used the phrase “very demure, very mindful” in a series of videos that went viral, with fellow TikTokers jumping on the bandwagon and using Lebron’s audio in other videos.
Thanks to the clip, the word saw a 1,200% increased use on digital web media between January and August, with Google searches for the word increasing about the same amount.
According to the site, Lebron’s use of demure also transformed the definition of the word, which can now be used to “describe refined and sophisticated appearance or behavior in various contexts, such as at work or on a plane.”
But demure wasn’t the only word to gain a lot of traction in 2024. Words making Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year short list include brainrot, brat, extreme weather, Midwest nice and weird.