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The Cambridge Dictionary is already manifesting a better new year with its official pick for this year’s Word of the Year.
As new slang terms emerge at the speed of light, the buzz around words that were possibly considered “in” a week ago dies down fairly quickly in the contemporary zeitgeist. TikTok’s recently surging love for being “Demure” still had nothing against the word ‘Manifest,’ when it came down to the Cambridge Dictionary checking off its three mandatory considerations: user data, zeitgeist and language.
The Cambridge Dictionary describes the verb: “To use methods such as visualization and affirmation to help you imagine achieving something you want, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen.”
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Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology at Cambridge University, called out the pseudoscience as “magical thinking.” Nevertheless, the word undeniably shot to excessive popularity thanks to TikTok, especially during the pandemic.
Clearly, the Cambridge Dictionary recognised that while rolling out the announcement of its Word of the Year 2024 on November 20, 2024.
Its official website revealed that ‘manifest’ met the “user data” competition to be crowned the top-scorer as it amassed 130,000 page views this year. The dictionary blog also noted that a “host of manifesting influencers” on social media particularly helped the word attract global attention during the pandemic as they gave “tips on how to manifest money, career success, or money generally, abundance.”
However, it was ultimately the Olympians, Paralympians, singers and other influential crowd that immortalised its presence in the mainstream media, emphasising that they found success this year, all thanks to the powers of manifestation. Thirdly, the blog observed that the word’s initial negative connotations associated with diseases and illnesses swiftly did a U-turn. A shift to a more positive outlook was mapped out as ‘manifest’ soon started being used with words like “goal, success, and dream.”
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As the Cambridge Dictionary’s overall 10th Word of the Year, ‘manifest’ was up against some strong contenders, including ‘brat,’ which gained a new perspective with Charli XCX’s sixth studio album title and its association with the Kamala Harris presidential campaign. Earlier, ‘brat’ was branded the Collins Dictionary’s Word of the Year.
Some other words on their way to the top were ‘ecotarian,’ which “reflects the growing movement towards environmentally conscious living,” and ‘resilience,’ which is “the strength and adaptability needed in challenging times.”
As per the EuroNews report, the Cambridge Dictionary also unveiled a list of new words it had on its radar this year, including ‘quishing,’ ‘cocktail party problem,’ ‘vampire’ (as an adjective derivation of the existing word), ‘resenteeism,’ and ‘gymfluencer.’