We might be bidding farewell to 'Brat girl summer' and ushering in 'cosy girl autumn', but the four-letter word that defined a large stretch of 2024 has now been immortalised, after it entered the history books as Collins Dictionary's word of the year.
Brat, which, to our parents, may well have been used as an insult hurled at our adolescent selves, was popularised this summer by Charli XCX's sixth studio album of the same name, which was released in June 2024. What ensued was a cultural tsunami that the Essex-born star coined 'Brat girl summer', with slime green and general debauchery being framed through the lens of all-things 'brat.' Brat wasn't just an adjective, it was a way of being and seeing the world.
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Lexicographers at Collins trawled the media and their database and put brat number one as it's been 'embraced so widely' and is 'one of the most talked about words of 2024'.
'"Brat" has become one of the most talked about words of 2024,' Collins said. It 'resonated with people globally and "brat summer" established itself as an aesthetic and a way of life'.
Other words on the list include 'era', inspired by Taylor Swift's hugely successful tour of the same name; 'yapping' — talking at length about inconsequential things; and 'delulu', meaning utterly mistaken or unrealistic in one's ideas or expectations. 'Rawdogging' also appears on the word of the year list.
Collins Dictionary monitors its 20 billion-word database along with a range of media sources to create an annual list that aims to 'reflect our ever-evolving language and the preoccupations of those who use it'. The words on the list tend to be a mixture of new words and existing terms that are popularised or reclaimed within a certain context. 'Lockdown, for example, was the word of the year in 2020, while last year’s was 'AI'.
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Naomi May is a seasoned culture journalist and editor with over ten years’ worth of experience in shaping stories and building digital communities. After graduating with a First Class Honours from City University's prestigious Journalism course, Naomi joined the Evening Standard, where she worked across both the newspaper and website. She is now the Digital Editor at ELLE Magazine and has written features for the likes of The Guardian, Vogue, Vice and Refinery29, among many others. Naomi is also the host of the ELLE Collective book club.
