(NEXSTAR) — In a very mindful, very thoughtful announcement Monday, Dictionary.com declared “demure,” a word made popular by TikTok but dating back roughly 700 years, as the word of the year for 2024.
Dictionary.com hands out the Word of the Year title to the word that captures “pivotal moments in language and culture.” Recent winners include hallucinate, woman, and allyship.
“These words serve as a linguistic time capsule, reflecting social trends and global events that defined the year,” the online dictionary explained Monday. “The Word of the Year isn’t just about popular usage; it reveals the stories we tell about ourselves and how we’ve changed over the year. And for these reasons, Dictionary.com’s 2024 Word of the Year is demure.”
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Demure, typically used to describe shyness, modesty, and a reserved personality, was first used between 1350 and 1400, according to Dictionary.com. Its use was relatively the same, serving to describe something as “well-mannered” and “grave.”
Demure’s current victory and success can largely be attributed to TikTok user Jools Lebron, better known as @joolieannie, who shared a slew of advice this year on how to appear “very demure” and “very mindful.”
According to Dictionary.com, demure saw a 1,200% increase in usage across digital web media between January and August alone. Jools’ TikTok videos seemingly play into an “increased focus on public appearance and behavior” that Dictionary.com reports has been sparked by employees return to working in an office.
In social settings now, demure is more frequently used to describe a behavior in certain settings.
Jools has covered a number of topics to be not only “demure” but “mindful” at, like looking “very presentable” at work and showing up early at the airport for vacation. It’s also about being “very cutesy,” “very respectful,” and “not doing too much.”
Social media users have used the term to describe this photo of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his military uniform sitting on a bench, with others connecting it with Vice President Kamala Harris on the campaign trail. It’s also been used to describe how to politely eat a chip and save money, as well as commending Team USA for not winning too many gold medals “to show off.”
The five words ‘demure’ beat out for Word of the Year
While the victory for demure may not actually be very modest, its success cannot be overlooked. Dictionary.com shared a list of the five words that also appeared on the shortlist for its honorary ‘Word of the Year’ title.
That included brainrot, used to describe how you may feel after spending too much time online (potentially watching videos on how to be “very demure”); brat, not the sausage but the term used to describe this summer; extreme weather, a nod to the hurricanes, flooding, heat, and more than we experienced this year; Midwest nice, which gained popularity thanks to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz joining Harris’ presidential campaign; and weird, a term Walz seemingly coined that became wildly used to describe both political parties as well as the times we’re living in.