It’s official. “Brain rot” is the Oxford dictionary’s word of the year.
Many of us have felt that fuzzy feeling before, usually brought on by a digital overload. Oxford University Press said on Monday that the evocative phrase “gained new prominence in 2024,” as its frequency of use increased 230 per cent from the past year.
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Oxford defines brain rot as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state”, especially as the result of excessively consuming trivial and unstimulating material, particularly online content.
The word of the year is a word or expression that reflects “a defining theme from the past 12 months.” It is chosen based on usage evidence from news sources and data, and is intended to reflect the moods and conversations shaping 2024.
“Brain rot” was chosen by a combination of public vote and language analysis by Oxford lexicographers. It beat five other finalists: demure, slop, dynamic pricing, romantasy and lore.
While it may seem a modern phenomenon, the first recorded use of “brain rot” according to Oxford was by Henry David Thoreau in his 1854 ode to the natural world, Walden.
“While England endeavours to cure the potato rot,” Thoreau lamented, “will not any endeavour to cure the brain rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”
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Oxford Languages President Casper Grathwohl said brain rot in its modern sense, “speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life and how we are using our free time.”
“It feels like a rightful next chapter in the cultural conversation about humanity and technology. It’s unsurprising that so many voters embraced the term, endorsing it as our choice this year,” he said.
Last year’s Oxford word of the year was “rizz,” a riff on charisma, used to describe someone’s ability to attract or seduce another person.
Collins Dictionary’s 2024 word of the year is “brat” – the album title that became a summer-living ideal. Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year is “manifest” and Dictionary.com’s word of the year is “demure”. Very demure, very mindful indeed.
