Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

It’s hard to describe something really big with only one single word. If I had to sum up the entirety of the United States with just a word, it probably wouldn’t feel like it was enough. After all, our country is made up of a lot of different people and spans a good chunk of the continent and more than two centuries of history. That’s pretty difficult to narrow down.

It’s the same when we try to sum up the last twelve months with just one “word of the year.”

And yet, every year we try anyway!

Several English dictionaries select a “word of the year” that tries to best describe our collective experience since the last time we rang in the new year. They use different metrics and methods to make the pick, but often, it ends up being the dictionary’s most-searched word. That’s a good indicator of what’s on a lot of people’s minds.

No matter which word is picked, you can be sure it was a hot topic of discussion for a period of time.

The words for 2023 were wide-ranging, from “AI” to “hallucinate” and “rizz” to “authentic.” It was an odd hodge-podge of words, depending on the group of people making the selection.

This year’s words are no different. None of them are really similar to each other in definition, though many of them are rooted in slang. (That’s the increasing trend I’ve noticed over the past few years. Some think the best way to sum up a year is through what silly word the young people repeated over and over again for a few months.)

UK-based Collins Dictionary always picks something strange, in my opinion. This year their word was “brat” which is defined as “characterized by a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude.” The word has been around for ages (as something people don’t usually want to be labeled as), but its popularity boomed again this year thanks to musician Charlie XCX releasing an album with that name.

I apparently live under a rock (and don’t listen to this genre of music), so I missed whatever cultural significance the album (and word) had.

Dictionary.com also picked a word that was popularized again earlier this year: “demure.” This word catapulted into excessive usage a few months ago thanks to a popular TikTok video. Again, I live under a rock (and don’t have TikTok), so I missed the popularity of this one too.

The dictionary explained that they choose a word which captures “pivotal moments in language and culture,” sort of like a “linguistic time capsule.”

“Demure” itself traditionally describes a person who is “reserved, quiet, or modest,” but as Dictionary.com points out, a new definition has emerged to describe “refined or sophisticated appearance or behavior.”

I do think it’s interesting whenever words pick up new definitions over time. But I’m still not sure I would have chosen this particular one as the Word of the Year.

Meanwhile, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) continues to crowdsource their pick. They received over 37,000 votes this year and the result was “brain rot” being selected as their word.

Like the previous words chosen, this is a term favored by younger folks. I am, however, familiar with this one since I see it used a lot on online. Brain rot is defined by the OED as intellectual deterioration, especially when it’s the result of overconsumption of trivial online content.

But mostly I see people online use it as a silly way to describe something that they’re obsessed with at the moment. “I can’t stop watching [new TV show]. The characters are giving me brain rot” is something I’ve seen frequently.

According to the OED, the term was first used by Henry David Thoreau in his book “Walden” in 1854. He was, of course, criticizing society’s tendency to devalue complex ideas when he used the word back then.

Again, it’s cool to see the meanings of words change over time. But what an odd choice for Word of the Year.

As usual, I liked Merriam-Webster’s selection the best: “polarization.”

This isn’t some random pop-culture term, but something that actually sounds like a description of the past twelve months. The word is defined as “division into two sharply distinct opposites; especially, a state in which the opinions, beliefs, or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum but become concentrated at opposing extremes.”

Boy, doesn’t that sound like a good description of society these days! I feel like I see a lot of “us versus them” kinds of discussions, more so than in the past. It’s especially noticeable in politics, and the presidential election this year only boosted that.

I also like to choose my own personal “word of the year” to sum up my own experience from January to December. Last year, I picked “whirlwind” to describe a year that felt like it just flew by so fast.

This year, I struggled to come up with a word. I was tempted to pick “exhaustion” or “mindfulness” but I actually selected both those words previously (in 2019 and 2018, respectively).

Eventually, I settled on “quiet.”

The word has many definitions, but the one that probably comes to mind first is “free from noise or uproar.”

But I was thinking more along the lines of “little or no motion or activity” and “gentle, easygoing.”

It has been a busy year with work, as it always is. But when I look back over the past twelve months, the moments that stick out to me are the quiet ones, where I am relaxing at home or visiting my parents or driving in my car. Nothing very exciting happened to me, and that’s perfectly okay! Some years are simply like that.

What would be your personal Word of the Year?

Holly Taylor is a Staff Writer for Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact her at holly.taylor@r-cnews.com 252-332-7206.