2 weeks Ago By Bryan Rilloraza
Merriam-Webster has chosen “polarization” as its Word of the Year for 2024. This selection comes on the heels of a highly contested U.S.
presidential election, which captured global attention. defines polarization as the “division into two sharply distinct opposites; especially, a state in which the opinions, beliefs, or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum but become concentrated at opposing extremes.” The term “polarization” and its verb form “polarize” have a surprising origin story that dates back to the early 1800s.
The words initially referred to the behavior of light waves. The original meaning of “polarize” – “to cause to vibrate in a specific pattern” – has since evolved into a political and cultural context. Other words that stood out in their lookup data are totality, demure, fortnight, pander, resonate, allision, weird, cognitive, and democracy.
Incidentally, “demure” was . In social media, the term was used to describe a “refined and sophisticated appearance or behavior in various contexts, such as at work or on a plane.” Meanwhile, Oxford Dictionaries selected as its Word of the Year, which was used to describe the decline of a person’s mental or intellectual state caused by excessive exposure to low-quality, addictive content on platforms like TikTok.
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