The first recorded use of “brain rot,” according to Oxford University Press, was in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, published in 1854. “While England endeavours to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?” wrote Thoreau in his treatise on transcendentalism.

Brain rot” is the 2024 Oxford Word of the Year, adding to a growing list of Internet-specific words that are chosen by dictionaries as words of the year.

Oxford Languages President Casper Grathwohl said that in its modern sense, “’brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free