Considering the rising trend of people trying to manifest their goals and dreams, and the word being searched almost 130,000 times on the Cambridge Dictionary website, the word ‘Manifest’ is chosen as the the Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2024. According to their website, manifest is one of the most-viewed words of 2024.
The word was initially used in the self-help community and now it it widely being used on social media and across mainstream media and beyond. Even celebrities like singer Dua Lipa, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, actress Alia Bhatt, and England striker Ollie Watkins have spoken of manifesting their success.
The phrase “to manifest” is used in the sense of ‘to imagine achieving something you want, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen’. Yet manifesting is an unproven idea that grew out of a 100-year-old spiritual philosophy movement.
Talking about how ‘Manifest’ was chosen as the Word of the Year 2024 by Cambridge Dictionary, Wendalyn Nichols, Publishing Manager of the Cambridge Dictionary, said, “When we choose a Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year, we have three considerations: What word was looked up the most, or spiked? Which one really captures what was happening in that year? And what is interesting about this word from a language point of view? “Manifest” won this year because it increased notably in lookups, its use widened greatly across all types of media due to events in 2024, and it shows how the meanings of a word can change over time.”
However, experts warn that tough “manifesting” has become quite popular among people, it has no scientific validity. It can lead to risky behaviour or the promotion of false and dangerous beliefs, like diseases can be simply wished away.
Dr Sander van der Linden, author of The Psychology of Misinformation and Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Cambridge, said in a statement, “Manifesting is what psychologists call ‘magical thinking’ or the general illusion that specific mental rituals can change the world around us.
“Manifesting gained tremendous popularity during the pandemic on TikTok with billions of views, including the popular 3-6-9 method which calls for writing down your wishes three times in the morning, six times in the afternoon and nine times before bed. This procedure promotes obsessive and compulsive behaviour with no discernible benefits. But can we really blame people for trying it, when prominent celebrities have been openly ‘manifesting’ their success?
“’Manifesting’ wealth, love, and power can lead to unrealistic expectations and disappointment. Think of the dangerous idea that you can cure serious diseases simply by wishing them away.
“There is good research on the value of positive thinking, self-affirmation, and goal-setting. Believing in yourself, bringing a positive attitude, setting realistic goals, and putting in the effort pays off because people are enacting change in the real world. However, it is crucial to understand the difference between the power of positive thinking and moving reality with your mind – the former is healthy, whereas the latter is pseudoscience.”
How the word ‘Manifest’ evolved over the years
The 600-year history of the word “manifest” shows how a word’s meaning can change over time. The oldest meaning, which Geoffrey Chaucer spelled as “manyfest” in the 14th century, is an adjective meaning “easily noticed” or “obvious.”
In the mid-1800s, this meaning was used in American politics with the idea of “manifest destiny,” the belief that it was clearly the fate of American settlers to expand across North America.
Chaucer also used the verb “manifest” in its oldest sense, meaning “to show something clearly through signs or actions.” Shakespeare used “manifest” as an adjective in The Merchant of Venice: “For it appears, by manifest proceeding, that…thou hast contrived against the very life of the defendant.”
The verb is still commonly used this way. For example, people can manifest their feelings, like dissatisfaction, or symptoms of an illness can manifest themselves. A company’s problems can manifest as a drop in its stock price.
Other words of 2024
Apart from “manifest”, other popular terms in 2024 according to the Cambridge Dictionary include:
1. brat
a child, especially one who behaves badly
Brat” went viral in the summer of 2024 thanks to pop artist Charli XCX’s album of the same name about nonconformist women who reject a narrow and highly groomed female identity as portrayed on social media. (We weren’t the only dictionary publisher to notice this.)
2. demure
quiet and well behaved
Influencer Jools Lebron’s satirical use of “demure” in a TikTok post mocking stereotypical femininity drove lookups in the Cambridge Dictionary. After brat summer, we had a demure fall.
3. Goldilocks
used to describe a situation in which something is or has to be exactly right
Financial reporters characterized India’s strong growth and moderate inflation as a Goldilocks economy in early 2024.
4. ecotarian
a person who only eats food produced or prepared in a way that does not harm the environment
This term rose in overall lookups in 2024, reflecting growing interest in environmentally conscious living.
Words Cambridge began tracking in 2024 include:
1. quishing: the scam of phishing via QR code.
2. resenteeism: to continue doing your job but resent it. This blend of “resent” and “absenteeism” is appearing in business journalism.
3. gymfluencer: a social media influencer whose content is focused on fitness or bodybuilding.
4. cocktail party problem (also cocktail party effect): the difficulty of focusing on one voice when there are multiple speakers in the room. This term from audiology is now being used with reference to AI.
5. vampire: a vampire device or vampire appliance is one which uses energy even when not in use. This is a new, adjective sense of an existing word.
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