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Words of 2024
A year of elections, olympians and loads of social media. So what were the words that summed it up as chosen by major dictionaries?
Unsurprisingly it was social media that had the biggest influence on word popularity, but perhaps it’s a little surprising that three of the words have a positive feeling to them. Here they are:
DEMURE /dɪˈmjɔː/ or /dɪˈmjʊə/Dictionary.com’s word of 2024 became popular on Tik-Tok after Jools Debron used the phrase “Very demure, very mindful”. It sums up a certain type of refined or sophisticated behaviour.
BRAT /brat/Collins word of the year used to be a noun describing an annoying child, BRAT became an adjective this year meaning hedonistic and youthful. It was introduced as such almost single-handedly by singer Charlie XCX whose latest album (released in ’24) is called… BRAT.
POLARISATION /ˌpəʊlərʌɪˈzeɪʃn/In a year of popular words changing meaning, Merriam-Webster’s choice was one that didn’t. This year’s American election was clearly at the heart of its surge in use.
MANIFEST /ˈmanɪfɛst/Cambridge dictionary’s choice took on a new use with many people manifesting about their futures online. It seems to have accelerated around the Olympic and Paralympic games this year with some medal winners talking about manifesting as reason for their success.
BRAIN ROT /ˈbreɪn rɒt/A compound topped Oxford’s list, referring to the perceived deterioration of your grey matter when consuming social media. Make sure you stress the first word in keeping with most compound nouns!
Let’s see what 2025 has in store! Hopefully it won’t be ENSHITTIFICATION, which was Australian dictionary Macquarie’s choice of 2024, which means the gradual deterioration of a service.
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2023 – Words of the Year
For the first time since COVID hit in 2020, this year’s words of the year aren’t about the pandemic. Instead they are mainly concerned with a different kind of rapidly spreading phenomenon: Artificial Intelligence.
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Categories1. Not categorized0% * Let’s see which words 2024 throws at us! 1. 1 2. 2 3. 3 4. 4 5. 5 1. Current 2. Review 3. Answered 4. Correct 5. Incorrect 1. Question 1 of 51. Question 1. Which pronunciation of AUTHENTIC could be found in British English dictionaries? * /əˈθentɪk/ * /ɔːˈθɛntɪk/CorrectIncorrectHintThe American version starts with a schwa /ə/. 2. Question 2 of 52. Question2. Where is the main stress in AI?
* On the A
* On the I
* Equally on both A and ICorrectIncorrectHintStress tends to go towards the end in English.
- Question 3 of 53. Question3. Which pronunciation of HALLUCINATE do you hear?
https://media.pronunciationstudio.com/2024/01/hallucinate1.mp3
* [ʔəluˑsɪneɪʔ]
* [həˈluˑsɪneɪtʰ]
* [awiˈmɑːhoː]CorrectIncorrectHintIt starts and ends with glottal stops.
-
Question 4 of 54. Question4. COZZIE LIVS is a popular expression meaning “Cost of Living Crisis” in:
- England
- Australia
- The Hebrides
- A distant galaxyCorrectIncorrectHintDown under!
-
Question 5 of 55. Question5. If you RIZZ SOMEONE UP you:
-
Roll them a cigarette.
- Make them extremely angry.
- Use charisma to attract them.
- Find their profile on social media.CorrectIncorrectHintRIZZ = CHARISMA
In this article we’ll go through 5 major English language dictionary’s choices for word of the year, explaining what the words mean, and most importantly, how to pronounce them.
- authentic /ɔːˈθɛntɪk/Merriam Webster, the popular American English dictionary went with ‘authentic’ as its word of the year. It saw a big increase in searches for this word in 2023.
Although it isn’t a new word, it has adopted a new significance since the mainstream arrivals of social media and artificial intelligence. Both have left many wondering what exactly is “authentic”.
The pope running away from police probably isn’t authentic. But neither is a staged TikTok comedy scene, or an influencer who is trying to look natural whilst explaining the advantages of a fake tan.
The word actually sounds slightly different in American English, starting on a schwa /əˈθentɪk/ whereas in British it’s with /ɔː/ /ɔːθɛntɪk/.
Though which pronunciation is the authentic one, remains to be seen...
- AI /ˌeɪˈʌɪ/Collins’ dictionary’s word of the year is actually an abbreviation of two words “Artificial Intelligence”. According to Collins it means:
‘the modelling of human mental functions by computer programs’
To some, AI signifies the potential freedom of humanity from the constraints of work, poor health, inequality and ecological disaster, freeing up our time to put our feet up and let the robots do the work.
Others imagine it will bring an abrupt end to civilisation by deciding to wipe humans out completely. So there’s quite a range of opinions out there!
What is unquestionable is that we are now in a new and very rapidly changing world defined by these two letters.
In abbreviated form, its pronunciation is 2 diphthongs /eɪ/ and /ʌɪ/. On its own, the stress is on /ʌɪ/ – ˌAˈI, but if any content word appears after it, the stress shifts to that, so ˌAI ˈRobot, for example.
You can also hard attack both syllables, giving [ˌʔeɪ ˈʔʌɪ].
- hallucinate /həˈluːsɪneɪt/Cambridge’s word of the year is a very old word indeed, dating back to the 17th century and having its roots in the Latin word ‘alucinatus’.
Previously associated with the mind-altered states caused by certain recreational drugs or mental conditions, hallucinate has taken on a new meaning recently. It’s when an Artificial Intelligence bot misunderstands its prompt and comes up with a ridiculous or wrong solution.
Common examples currently include chatbots inventing events or qualifications, and image generators producing bizarre images. Hands seem to be a particular problem.
In keeping with its meaning, the pronunciation of hallucinate can change quite a lot
It’s a word that starts on a glottal fricative /h/ and ends on an alveolar /t/ in standard English, but in regional accents it could easily begin and end on glottal stops: [ʔəˈluˑsɪneɪʔ].
- cozzie livs /ˌkɒzi ˈlɪvz/The first thing to note about number 2 in this list, is that down under in Australia they love an abbreviation or Australianism as they are affectionately known.
‘arvo’ is afternoon, ‘yewy’ is U-turn, and ‘barbie’ isn’t just a doll, it’s also a barbecue. A barbie barbie would be an interesting event indeed.
So when the world experiences a Cost of Living Crisis, which sounds a bit bleak and a bit long, what are the Aussies gonna do?
That’s right, Cozzie Livs is Australian dictionary Macquierie’s word of the year. The abbreviation reportedly originated in the UK, but it didn’t catch on in quite the same way.
- rizz /rɪz/Oxford’s word of the year, and our pick of the bunch is RIZZ. It appears to have started with online video streamer Kai Cenat using it occasionally in his feeds, and slowly then very quickly it spread through social media.
Essentially, it’s a young person’s way of saying ‘charisma’ – so you ‘have Rizz’ in the same way you’d ‘have charisma’.
But it’s more flexible than the older word – you can ‘rizz someone up’, for example which means that you use your rizz to attract them.
This kind of wilful attempt to attract people is in direct opposition to Oxford’s 2022 word of the year – Goblin Mode, referring to post-pandemic apathy.
And its noteworthy that having Rizz is a very human thing. Artificial Intelligence, for all its mind-boggling potential, will likely struggle for a long time to have any rizz at all.
Although it’s short, for second language speakers, it’s not the easiest word to pronounce – starting with a smooth alveolar /r/, it moves to a near-close, near-front /ɪ/ and ends on a voiced /z/. The combination is unusual in many languages, so let’s give it a go: /rɪz/.
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Very Tenables and the surreal world of Spoonerisms.I should start this piece by stating that spoonerisms have nothing whatsoever to do with spoons.So nir.Except of course, that both spoons and spoonerisms are pretty funny. And surreal.
I was reminded of them yesterday when I saw this rather sad news:
I think it was during the 1996 Curled Wup that somebody I knew quite randomly swapped the first letters of Terry Venables’ name around and it stuck fast (don’t spoonerise that!).
I’ve never been able to think of him by his real name again, such is my addiction to silly word play.
The term ‘spoonerism’ originates from the Oxford Don W.A. Spooner (1844-1930), who reportedly said a lot of them. It occurs when sounds are swapped in a word or phrase:
A spoonerism could be a mistake, or deliberate. Many are funny, and it’s no surprise that a lot of them are rude, as anybody who’s heard of Joe Blob will know.
And ‘popcorn’ will never taste the same after it’s spoonerised (that actually isn’t a verb).
Here are some more, phrases that have been spoonerised. Can you work out what they were originally?
Answersrough take
Buzz Feed
for sale
grilled cheese
mind blown
crushing blow
funny bone
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10 New Words 2016 Every year the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) adds new words, here is our pick from 2016 - 10 words that sum up the year's social developments perfectly, how to pronounce them and what they mean: non-apology /ˌnɒnəˈpɒlədʒi/ A non-apology, otherwise known as a 'non-apology apology', is when you say sorry, but your statement doesn’t seem [...]
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Speak - idioms & phrasal verbs. Do know your 'speak out' from your 'speak up' and your 'speak volumes'? Here's the Pronunciation Studio guide to a very versatile word: [ssba] 1. “speak volumes” Meaning: represent/display ”Those exam results speak volumes for the level of teaching here." “Your appearance speaks volumes for your level of attitude [...]
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"sorry" - 4 uses [ssba] One of the most overused words in England. Why do English people say sorry so often? Is it a reflex? Do they really mean it? Could it even be a way of apologising for class differences? Whatever the real reason, here are 4 ways to say and use it: 1. [...]
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RIP Prints: the unlikely homophone. Yesterday saw the announcement of Prints’s death. An artist whose work spanned many genres and was loved the world over. He probably won’t be remembered for his name being a homophone, though. But 'Prince' is, or at least, can be, a homophone. It’s an unusual one too, joining a select group [...]
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Cockney Rhyming Slang Going out for a Ruby Murray this evening? Or perhaps you'll stay in with the trouble and strife because you've got no bees and honey? We're talking cockney rhyming slang of course, here's how it works: you swap the word for its corresponding slang phrase, so 'Ruby Murray' = curry, 'Trouble & [...]
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Speech Idioms [ssba] We're talking shop this month at Pronunciation Studio. That's right - idioms about speaking. Here are 10 really useful ones that are used to describe speech. I'll stop talking in circles then and spit it out: 1. has the cat got your tongue? Question used when someone won’t speak. "What’s wrong Penny? You [...]
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Contractions and Apostrophes. You might've /maɪtəv/ already guessed that this article looks at how apostrophes indicate sound in contractions (he's, we'd, I'd've etc.) - a key area of connected speech. Students often tell me that they either find contractions too hard to use or they prefer not to use them because they feel they sound too [...]
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7 ways to say "hello". [ssba] The meaning of "hello" can change dramatically from charm to fear, or from attraction to annoyance depending on the intonation used. Here are 7 different ways to say it, each with its own meaning: 1. Pleased - “I haven’t seen you for ages”. Perhaps you haven’t seen someone for a while, or you bump [...]
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10 Common Words with Strange Spellings. [ssba] Here at Pronunciation Studio we are the first to admit that English spelling can be very strange sometimes. Unfortunately some very common words are spelt very strangely, so here is our list of 10 of the worst offending examples and a guide to how to pronounce them. [...]
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10 Words with Alternative Pronunciations [ssba] Some words don't like being boxed in by a single pronunciation. In class at Pronunciation Studio, we are often asked whether there is a more or less 'correct' version of words like OFTEN, GARAGE and SCHEDULE. The fact is that the idea of 'correctness' is often defined by popularity, [...]
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