Voting opens for Oxford Word of the Year 2024

For the third consecutive year, we are giving word lovers everywhere the opportunity to have their say on the Oxford Word of the Year.

Following analysis of our 25-billion-word corpus of language data, our language experts have compiled this year’s shortlist to reflect some of the moods and conversations that have shaped 2024. Once again, we’re inviting the public to help us select the Word of the Year by voting for their favourite word.

Encapsulating themes from finances to fantasy, and the evolving impact of technology on society, the six competing words and expressions have seen notable spikes in usage and gained new prominence in 2024.

The shortlist is as follows:

• brain rot (n.): Supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.
• demure (adj.): Of a person: reserved or restrained in appearance or behaviour. Of clothing: not showy, ostentatious, or overly revealing.
• dynamic pricing (n.): The practice of varying the price for a product or service to reflect changing market conditions; in particular, the charging of a higher price at a time of greater demand.
• lore (n.): A body of (supposed) facts, background information, and anecdotes relating to someone or something, regarded as knowledge required for full understanding or informed discussion of the subject in question.
• romantasy (n.): A genre of fiction combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy, typically featuring themes of magic, the supernatural, or adventure alongside a central romantic storyline.
• slop (n.): Art, writing, or other content generated using artificial intelligence, shared and distributed online in an indiscriminate or intrusive way, and characterized as being of low quality, inauthentic, or inaccurate.

Voting is now open, so don’t miss the chance to have your say!

Voting will close on Thursday 28 November at 3pm GMT / 10am EST. Our experts will then conduct a last detailed analysis, considering corpus data, votes, and public commentary, before naming the definitive Word of the Year 2024 on 2 December.