'Brain rot' is the word of the year, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The phrase is a century old.

Emily Bloch, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Dec 2, 2024

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Doomscrolling is so 2020 — we're now in the year of "brain rot" instead.

That's 2024′s word of the year according to Oxford University Press, the Oxford English Dictionary's publisher.

For those uninitiated, brain rot is a popular term within internet culture, associated with being chronically online. The Oxford University Press defined the phrase as "the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging."

The publisher said the grand reveal follows a public vote in which more than 37,000 people participated. "After two weeks of public voting and widespread conversation, our experts came together to consider the public's input, voting results, and our language data, before declaring 'brain rot' as the definitive Word of the Year for 2024," the publisher said.

Even though use of the phrase has surged in the last year, Oxford University Press said it's been around for 170 years.

Experts say its first recorded use was found in Walden, the 1854 book by Henry David Thoreau. In Walden, Thoreau criticizes society's tendency to devalue complex ideas and says it's indicative of mental and intellectual decline. He wrote: "While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot — which prevails so much more widely and fatally?"

Oxford University Press said the term's usage increased in frequency from 2023 to 2024 by 230%.

Past Oxford University Press words of the year include "rizz" in 2023, "goblin mode" in 2022, "vax" in 2021, and a mix of terms in 2020 to sum up the "unprecedented year" sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic — one of those terms was "doomscroll," which could presumably cause this year's "brain rot."

Ultimately, "brain rot" beat out a list of popular phrases from the year including "demure," "dynamic pricing," and "lore."

Here's the Oxford University Press' complete 2024 short list:

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) 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 story line.

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.