The experts have spoken!  Read on to learn the official word of the year as well as your picks for the most apt word for 2024.  

Last time we asked for the one word that summed up 2024 for you.  The votes are still being tallied (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?), and there were a lot of votes on a general impression clearly based on the last few months of 2024:  “Hypocrisy” “Incredulous” “Horrified” “Dissonance,” “Surreal,” “Killjoy” and “Chaos.”

Most popular word?

And Reader Donna Joy got a lot of feedback for her one word summary:

Exhausted! 

Adds Reader JoAnn...

Now I’m loving that word as it describes ME! I’m 66 soon to be 67 and it’s still very hard for me to say no… I just watched our third grandchild for 5 days and it was exhausting… .

Happily, others summed up their year in a more personal and even upbeat way. Sandra P said “Read”  and D. Shelton offered “Reflection.”

Reader Celia had a lot of wonderful things to say about her word.

My word for 2024: exhilarated! Great granddaughter born just before New Year. Youngest granddaughter turned 16; celebrated at a terrific party. Lovely times with family. Local fundraiser where I got to meet NC governor. Universal in FL w/2 granddaughters. Great bookclub discussions. Learned how cricket is played. Fun times with friends. In Nov, got to interact with favorite Bollywood star in Mumbai. Caught up with other friends in India. Turned 78 years old and in very good health.

OPEN THREAD EXTRA!

It’s official! The Oxford University Press announced that the word of the year is….

Brain Rot. 

Read about it here.  

Original Column

More Contenders

Others have gotten into the act. The American Dialect Society last year named “crapification” for the way online products start off with a high quality offering, wait till it catches on and then…makes it crappier and crappier to make more cash.

The Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year is led by the data – what users look up. Last year it was ‘hallucinate.” 

While we wait breathlessly for the word on the…word,  Collins English Dictionary has jumped the gun and proclaimed that the word of the year is……

….Brat.

Hard to argue with that, but personally my word of the year would be “pivot.” All year I”ve had to be resilient, and to switch things up and change course, in pretty much every area of life. (Also not coincidentally, both my vacations this year were cancelled due to illness.) I hope that my word for 2025 will be ‘beach.”

YOUR TURN

But that’s me. While we wait for the folks in Oxford to weigh in, let’s hear from you! What word sums up 2024 for you? (Keep it nice, please!)

Virge Randall is Senior Planet’s Managing Editor. She is also a freelance culture reporter who seeks out hidden gems and unsung (or undersung) treasures for Straus Newspapers; her blog “Don’t Get Me Started” puts a quirky new spin on Old School New York City. Send  Open Thread suggestions to editor@seniorplanet.org