‘Manifest’ is Cambridge Dictionary’s 2024 word of the year, because maybe the universe listens [Video]

You might say they put it out to the universe.

Cambridge Dictionary has announced that its 2024 word of the year is “manifest,” a formal 600-year-old word that’s been given new life by Olympians like Simone Biles, entertainers like Dua Lipa, and people across social media who increasingly use the word to describe channelling their dreams into successes.

As a verb, manifest means to use methods such as visualization and affirmation to “help you imagine achieving something you want, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen,” the dictionary explains on its website. 

Prior to 2024, the word was mainly used in the self-help community, according to Cambridge Dictionary. But that changed this year as U.S. gymnast Biles talked about manifesting her success at the Paris Olympics, and singer Dua Lipa of the album Radical Optimism said she manifested headlining to a crowd of 100,000 fans at the Glastonbury music festival.

“If you set an intention and you …