On December 23, the NetEase Youdao Dictionary announced the 2024 Word of the Year: “damn.” Official data shows that the search volume for this word has exhibited astonishing growth this year, surging by 137,829% compared to last year. Related searches have reached 66.45 million, making it a new benchmark for emotional expression among Chinese youth in 2024.
“Damn” is an exclamatory word used by contemporary young people to express a variety of strong emotions. A search for this term on social media platforms in China this year reveals that many young individuals enjoy using it to document their lives — “Damn, the show I’ve waited seven years for is finally airing!” “My beloved team won the championship, damn!” “Altay is so beautiful, damn~” “Damn! Taylor Swift's new album is amazing!” A simple word carries a multitude of strong emotions, including admiration, excitement, surprise, and enthusiasm, reflecting the true life of Chinese youth in 2024.
Meanwhile, users of the Youdao Dictionary noticed this year, in addition to the British and American pronunciations of "damn," there was also a unique global pronunciation when they searched for it. In February 2024, a video featuring this "damn" pronunciation, contributed by an American male user, went viral due to its catchy sound, attracting widespread attention from netizens and becoming an internet meme.
Currently, on the Youdao Dictionary, the global pronunciation playback volume of the "damn" word has reached a staggering 49.6 million times. It has been ranked as the TOP 1 hot word in global pronunciations for nine consecutive months.
Over 10 million users have spontaneously uploaded their own pronunciation of "damn," which has also driven the popularity of other catchphrases such as "passion," "what," and "man," as well as promoting Chinese regional dialect-based English, such as "Beijinglish," "Tianjinlish," and "Chuanlish" on international social media platforms, allowing users to share and enjoy memes with friends from around the world.
As the largest online dictionary in the world by user scale, the Youdao Dictionary has published its annual hot words since 2012, based on user search data , to reflect the experiences of China’s learners each year. In 2021, over a billion users chose the word “salute” to pay tribute to vitality; in 2022, the younger generation redefined “crush”; in 2023, the wave of large language models brought explosive growth for the word “prompt,” marking the arrival of the AIGC era. Then in 2024, young people voted for “damn” as the word of the year in the Youdao Dictionary, using it to express life’s emotions with a direct and intense attitude, which mirrors the most genuine self-expression of contemporary youth.
As the year draws to a close, hot words always emerge in abundance. Besides the Youdao Dictionary, other renowned global dictionaries have released their Words of the Year, reflecting this year’s social phenomena and public sentiments. For example, the Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2024 is “brain rot,” describing the phenomenon of people becoming mentally fatigued, intellectually diminished, and cognitively impaired due to low-quality content and junk information on the internet. The Collins Dictionary selected “brat” as its Word of the Year, meaning an attitude of confidence, independence, and hedonism. The Cambridge Dictionary chose “manifest” as its Word of the Year, referring to the act of envisioning oneself achieving a goal and believing that doing so will make the goal more attainable.
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