Dictionary.com has crowned demure its Word of the Year for 2024, just ahead of brainrot and brat in the battle for supremacy in the pop culture lexicon.
Extreme weather, Midwest nice and weird also appeared on the popular dictionary website's shortlist of words it says have served as a "linguistic time capsule, reflecting social trends and global events that defined the year."
For the longest time, it seemed as if brat would take the crown. In June, pop star Charli XCX marked the release of her new album, Brat, by taking to social media to declare that this was to be a "Brat summer."
Defined as an ethos that encourages people to indulge and enjoy their individuality regardless of society's expectations, the term brat gained further prominence when, just after Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee, Charli XCX posted on X: "kamala IS brat."
Harris' subsequent defeat to Donald Trump is unlikely to have influenced things, though. In truth, many on social media had already moved away from brat long before the election's results.
By August, the word had already started to be usurped by another buzzworthy ethos that emerged from TikTok, courtesy of content creator Jools Lebron. This could not have been further removed from the idea of brat.
Lebron's success came via a series of videos in which she offered her views to followers on how to stay "very demure, very mindful" in any number of stressful situations.
Previously defined by Merriam-Webster's dictionary as a term for people "exhibiting quiet modesty and sedate reserve," demure has undergone something of an evolution in the seven centuries since it was first introduced to the English language. Now, it has come to refer to an individual exhibiting the aforementioned behaviors in a more affected manner compared with something sincere.
Lebron's usage touches on this, with The Guardian's Alaina Demopoulos previously suggesting that the content creator was using her "very demure, very mindful" catchphrase satirically to "joke about the performance of femininity."
"It also reads as a spoof on Gen Z's obsession with quiet luxury, the trend where wealth is flexed via a whisper, not a scream," Demopoulos wrote.
In one video, Lebron explained how she applies her approach to her job. "See how I do my makeup for work. Very demure, very mindful...I don't look like a clown when I go to work. I don't do too much, I'm very mindful," she says.
"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. I'm very modest, I'm very mindful."
In another clip, she offered advice for anyone traveling with family, stating how it was important to be "very early, very on time, very considerate, very demure" at the airport.
The videos clearly chimed with viewers online, racking up millions of views and any number of follow-ups from other users looking to get in on the trend.
Dictionary.com suggested her take on how to be refined and dignified in public touched on something in the national psyche. "This increased focus on public appearance and behavior comes at a time when employees are increasingly returning to offices after hybrid remote work following the pandemic," it said.
According to Dictionary.com's research, between January and the end of August there was a 1,200 percent increase in usage of demure in digital web media, which the website attributes largely to Lebron's use of the phrase "very demure, very mindful" from early August.
There was a similar increase in Google traffic. While there was no significant trend in the usage of demure between August 2023 and July 2024, Dictionary.com found that by the week of August 18 there was 14 times as much interest in the term.
At the peak of its popularity, demure searches were up 200 percent on Dictionary.com over the dates preceding August.
English (US) ·