The term “brat” has been selected as the Collins Dictionary’s 2024 word of the year. The organisers elaborated that this word has come to depict individuals embodying self-assurance, independence, and a pursuit of pleasure, swiftly causing it to become a dominant stylistic trend of the summer. They indicated that the essence was propelled by an album titled “brat” by Charli XCX, which transcended success as an album to become a cultural movement that saw global resonance, establishing ‘brat summer’ as a trending aesthetic and lifestyle.
Collins Dictionary’s lexicographers painstakingly track the Collins Corpus, a compilation of 20 billion words drawn from numerous media sources, including social media, to generate the yearly notable and debutant word list. The list reflects the ongoing evolution of language and the concerns of its users.
Another word that garners attention from this year’s list is “era”, a testament to the tremendous influence of female music stars on modern culture. The term, inspired by the sensational ‘Eras Tour’ of Taylor Swift, is broadly utilised to denote a specific phase in one’s life or career featuring a distinct character.
Despite the fact that nearly half of the global population partook in an election this year, only a single election-related word, “supermajority”, made it onto the list. The term, which means “a substantial majority in a law-making body that allows the government to pass laws with minimal inspection”, saw a surge in usage in the aftermath of the UK general election in July.
The youth has bestowed an innovative spin to existing terms while also introducing intriguing new words into the lexicon. Besides endlessly “yapping” to one another, there’s been a considerable debate over the term “looksmaxxing” on social media, defined by organisers as “the endeavour to augment one’s physical attractiveness.”
Collins’ Managing Director, Alex Beecroft, suggests that in this volatile political year both in the UK and globally, the term ‘supermajority’ has been particularly prevalent. However, the greatest changes in language have emerged from various other places. A prime example is ‘delulu’, a colloquialism classified as the perception of being completely misguided or having unjustifiably high hopes or beliefs. This slang, along with several other prominent words from this year, have predominantly been popularised by Generation Z and Alpha, causing Beecroft to confidently label this year’s list as the ‘brattiest’ yet.