Charli XCX taking over the world wasn’t on the 2024 bingo card. And yet, when the singer released her slime green-covered album in June, a new word became part of everybody’s everyday vocabulary. Of course, we’re talking about brat. ‘Brat summer’, ‘Kamala is brat’, XCX’s album title became so ingrained in the cultural zeitgeist even the US Presidential election campaigns started using it. So, it’s not super surprising that ‘brat’ has just been named the Collins Dictionary word of the year for 2024.
While Charli XCX’s brat is a party girl who smokes straights and wears a strappy white vest without a bra, Collins defines brat as ‘a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude’ as well as a ‘period of one's life or career that is of a distinctive character’.
Earlier this year XCX said a brat is a ‘girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it’.
‘“brat”’ has become one of the most talked about words of 2024,’ Collins wrote online. ‘More than a hugely successful album, ‘brat’ is a cultural phenomenon that has resonated with people globally, and ‘brat summer’ established itself as an aesthetic and a way of life.’
Other shortlisted words this year included ‘brainrot’, ‘rawdogging’, ‘yapping’, ‘delulu’ and ‘anti-tourism’.
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