As this year starts to wrap up, dictionaries are all coming out with their picks for the word of the year. We recently told you that Dictionary.com has chosen “demure” for its 2024 Word of the Year, and that Cambridge Dictionary selected "manifest" for theirs and now it’s Oxford’s turn. Oxford University Press, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, has named “brain rot” as its word of the year.
You’ve heard of the term, but do you know what it means? According to Oxford, it’s defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, explains that “‘brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.”
The term beat out five other finalists for word of the year, including “dynamic pricing,” “lore,” “romantasy,” “slop” and “demure.” While “brain rot” has seen a 230% spike in use this year, it was actually first used more than a century ago, Oxford University Press reports. The term first appeared in author Henry David Thoreau’s book “Walden,” which was published way back in 1854.
Source: CNN
photo: GETTY