WASHINGTON — It might have been a “brat” summer, but 2024 was all about being “demure.”
Dictionary.com named “demure” its word of the year Monday after seeing a “meteoric rise in usage” this year. “Demure” beat out other contenders like “brat,” “weird” and “brainrot.”
Between January and end of August, the word saw a nearly 1,200% increase in usage on digital media alone, according to Dictionary.com. Its surge is directly tied to TikTok creator Jools Lebron’s satirical video series where she coined the phrase “very demure, very mindful.”
“You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure. Very mindful,” Lebron says in one of her viral videos that has garnered over 12.2 million plays on TikTok. “The way I came to the interview is the way I go to the job. A lot of you girls go to the interview looking like Marge Simpson and go to the job looking like Patty and Selma. Not demure.”
What does demure mean?
The word has traditionally been used to describe someone who is reserved, quiet or modest, according to Dictionary.com. In 2024, the word took a whole new meaning on social media, now being used to describe “refined and sophisticated appearance or behavior in various contexts.”
Lexicographers at Dictionary.com analyzed headlines, social trends, search engine results and more to identify a short list of words that have made an impact online and in the real world.
Earlier this month, Collins Dictionary declared “brat” — the album title that became a summer-living ideal — its 2024 word of the year.
The word, used by singer Charli XCX as the title of her sixth studio album, has been defined as “characterized by a confident, independent and hedonistic attitude.”
Dictionary.com’s 2023 word of the year was hallucinate.