Jools Lebron, photographed in New York in September, inspired Dictionary.com's 2024 word of the ... [+] year.GC ImagesA very mindful Dictionary.com named its 2024 word of the year this week: demure, which has enjoyed a surge in popularity, and assumed new layers of meaning, since TikTok influencer Jools Lebron used it in an August post that went hugely viral.In Lebrons original satirical TikTok video, which has amassed more than 54 million views, the content creator shares how she ensures an understated workplace persona.You see how I do my make-up for work? Very demure, very mindful, Lebron tells her followers, who now number 2.3 million. A lot of you girls go to the interview looking like Marge Simpson and go to the job looking like Patty and Selma. Not demure. The very demure, very mindful catchphrase went on to appear in many thousands of videos, with multiple companies and brands deploying it in marketing campaigns and celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez hopping on the trend.Every year, Dictionary.com selects a word that captures the zeitgeist. At the height of the very mindful, very demure craze, the word demure had 200 times more searches on Dictionary.com than it did on dates before August, the site said in a Monday statement announcing its word of the year. Demure typically describes someone whos reserved and modest, but Lebron used it humorously in a way that appeared to challenge and poke fun at widespread societal expectations of how women are supposed to look and behave.Brat And Brainrot Make The List TooTo select its 2024 word of the year, Dictionary.com lexicographers analyzed data from headlines, social media trends and search results to identify words that reflect the cultural landscape of the past year.MORE FROMFORBES VETTEDThe rise and spread of the term on social media resulted in a similar increase in search interest on Google, Dictionary.com said. Between August 2023 and July 2024, there was no significant trend in the usage of the word demure. By the week of August 18, 2024, however, there was almost 14 times more interest in the term, highlighting the terms almost overnight explosion in popularity.Like demure, one of Dictionary.coms shortlisted words for 2024, brat, got a fresh twist in 2024. Musician Charli XCX turned it from an insult into a compliment to describe someone who is boldly confident when she tweeted that kamala IS brat, following Vice President Kamala Harris being announced as the Democratic presidential nominee.Shortlisted term brainrot, refers to the all-too-familiar effect of whiling away too much time consuming low-quality content on social media, Extreme weather also made the list. Searches for the phrase jumped, Dictionary.com noted, amid global discussions about record-breaking temperatures, catastrophic storms and widespread flooding.Dictionary.com 2023 word of the year was hallucinate, following woman in 2022, allyship in 2021 and pandemic in 2020.Lebron is clearly thrilled to be the driving force behind the sites top pick for 2024. She shared a playful TikTok video reacting to the announcement in which she preens and poses proudly. Her behavior in the vid is anything but demure, deliberately proving the point.