Most have us have long moved on from âbrat summerâ, when, sparked by Charli xcxâs album of the same name, wearing slime green and embracing your inner messiness was on trend. But the lexicographers at Collins dictionary are still firmly in their brat era, naming it their 2024 word of the year.
Though Collins already defined âbratâ as âsomeone, especially a childâ, who âbehaves badly or annoys youâ, it has been selected as word of the year because of its new definition: âcharacterised by a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitudeâ.
ââBratâ has become one of the most talked about words of 2024,â Collins said. It âresonated with people globally and âbrat summerâ established itself as an aesthetic and a way of lifeâ.
Brat tops a list of 10 words chosen by the dictionary publisher which represent 2024. Another pop star-inspired word made the list, âeraâ, inspired by Taylor Swiftâs Eras Tour. âSupermajorityâ was the only word that reflected the yearâs high number of elections â it apparently saw a sharp increase in usage around the time of the UK general election in July.
As is often the case when it comes to words of the year, expressions popularised by social media featured heavily on the list. âYappingâ â ie talking too much â has become a popular term on TikTok, as has âlooksmaxxingâ, defined by Collins as âattempting to maximise the attractiveness of oneâs physical appearanceâ.
âDeluluâ, slang for deluded, is another word known for its social media usage, along with ârawdoggingâ, which originally emerged as slang for sex without a condom, but is now more widely used as a term for doing something â most commonly taking a flight or train journey â without entertainment or assistance. Meanwhile âbrainrotâ, âan inability to think clearly caused by excessive consumption of low-quality online contentâ, has also made the top 10.
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Completing the list are âanti-tourismâ â the opposition of large-scale tourism â and âromantasyâ, a steamy subgenre of fantasy that has become hugely popular in recent years via authors such as Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yarros.
Alex Beecroft, managing director of Collins, said that âwhile âsupermajorityâ does the heavy lifting in a year of political upheaval in the UK and around the world, the big disruptors in language have come from different sources. With many of this yearâs notable words being popularised by generations Z and Alpha, we can confidently say this is the most âbratâ word of the year list ever!â
Collins dictionary monitors its 20bn-word database along with a range of media sources to create an annual list that aims to âreflect our ever-evolving language and the preoccupations of those who use itâ. The words on the list tend to be a mixture of completely new words and existing terms that have been particularly notable that year â âlockdownâ was the word of the year in 2020, for example â or ones that have developed additional meanings, such as brat. Last yearâs word of the year was AI.