Oxford Dictionaries has revealed its shortlist for Word of the Year, and the public is invited to vote for the one they think deserves to be the winner.
It's the time of year when the world's largest dictionaries look back on the biggest news and cultural moments of the past 12 months to figure out the words which best represent 2024. Oxford Dictionaries has revealed its shortlist for Word of the Year, and the public is invited to vote for the one they think deserves to be the winner. Voting is open until November 28th and the winner will be announced on December 2nd. Here are the finalists and what they mean:
- Lore: "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."
- Brain rot: "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."
- Dynamic pricing: "The practice of varying the price for a product or service to reflect changing market conditions; in particular, the charging of a higher price at a time of greater demand."
- Demure: "Of a person: reserved or restrained in appearance or behavior. Of clothing: not showy, ostentatious, or overly revealing."
- Slop: "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."
- Romantasy: "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."