It’s that time of the year again. Dictionary.com has announced demure as 2024’s Word of the Year.

Dictionary.com defines demure as “characterized by shyness and modesty; reserved,” but the word took on new life on the Internet. More specifically, it was popularized on TikTok by Jools Lebron, whose phrase “very demure, very mindful” was featured in a series of videos and was then copied by other creators. Between January and September, Dictionary.com says demure saw a 1200% usage increase in digital web media and had 200 times more searches on their website.

For the complete story, see “Dictionary.com Names ‘Demure’ as Its Word of the Year for 2024” by Rebecca Schneid at https://time.com/7178900/demure-word-of-the-year-2024/?