Colesworth, demure and brat: What the Words of the Year reveal about 2024

Dictionaries choose their words of the year towards November, but how well do they sum up the last 12 months?

A digital illustration showing a person sitting at a desk. Behind him is a pile of books. In the void space are definitions for the words demure and enshittification.

Some dictionaries have revealed there words of the year, with more to come. Source: Getty, SBS

If 2024 could be reflected in a word, it would be the gradual decline of a product or service online: enshittification.

At least that's according to Macquarie Dictionary which announced the colloquial noun as its word of the year this week, the committee adding: "This word captures what many of us feel is happening to the world and to so many aspects of our lives at the moment."

November brings with it the first signs of summer and reflections on the year that's passing, with several other dictionaries offering either new words or new uses of old ones that were notable in the last 12 months.

For proof that words can evoke years: strollout.

David Astle, a "word nerd" and former co-host of Letters and Numbers on SBS, said: "[Strollout] very powerfully distils the year that was.

"All you have to think about is that word strollout, and you were back in that same hellscape that was the [COVID] lockdown. It is that word that is the perfect file tab for 2021."
A digital illustration showing the word "enshittification" and its definition on the page of a dictionary.
Source: SBS News
This year, the above noun about services deteriorating was Macquarie's pick, while Dictionary.com went for "demure", the Collins dictionary went for "brat", and the Australian National Dictionary Centre (ANDC) plumped for "Colesworth".

Others, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, will reveal their words soon.
A digital illustration showing the word "demure" and its definition on the page of a dictionary.
Source: SBS News
Astle said: "I think enshittification wins it by yards. I think it is the one that brings it home and sums it up.

"You'll always get people who say 'It's the death of English' or 'Where are we going, off to hell in a wheelbarrow?' but you cannot deny the way that life has been trending with all the aspects of deteriorating online experiences ... that's all enshittification, and it just keeps compounding.

"So we need a word for it, and we've found one."
A digital illustration showing the word "manifest" and its definition on the page of a dictionary.
Source: SBS News
For the ANDC, their pick for word of the year — Colesworth — was chosen due to cost of living pressures and concern with the duopoly of Australia's two largest supermarkets.

Mark Gwynn, senior researcher at the National Dictionary Centre, said shoppers had become cynical about the large supermarkets.

"The blend of the supermarket names Coles and Woolworths into Colesworth provides a succinct way of referring to both supermarkets while at the same time hinting at the negative aspects of what is perceived as an unfair duopoly," he said.

Other words that were part of the shortlist for word of the year for Macquarie included:
  • — content considered to be low quality in terms of intellectual stimulation.
  • improving one's physical attractiveness as much as possible.
  • Rawdogging — the act of undertaking a long-haul flight with no electronic entertainment, devices or reading material.
  • Kup murri — an earth oven for pit cooking in the traditional Torres Strait Islander style.

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3 min read
Published 1 December 2024 11:01am
By Alexander Britton
Source: SBS News


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