Manifest was looked up almost 130,000 times on the Cambridge Dictionary website, making it one of the most-viewed words of 2024.
The word jumped from use in the self-help community and on social media to being widely used across mainstream media and beyond, as celebrities such as singer Dua Lipa, Olympic sprinter Gabby Thomas and England striker Ollie Watkins spoke of manifesting their success in 2024.
“Manifesting wealth, love, and power can lead to unrealistic expectations and disappointment. Think of the dangerous idea that you can cure serious diseases simply by wishing them away. Dr Sander van der Linden, Professor of Social Psychology, University of Cambridge.
‘Manyfest’, manifest destiny, and manifestos
The 600-year history of the word manifest shows how the meanings of a word can evolve.
The oldest sense – which Geoffrey Chaucer spelled as “manyfest” in the 14th century – is the adjective meaning ‘easily noticed or obvious’. In the mid-1800s, this adjective sense was used in American politics in the context of “manifest destiny”, the belief that American settlers were clearly destined to expand across North America.
Chaucer also used the oldest sense of the verb manifest, ‘to show something clearly, through signs or actions’. Shakespeare used manifest as an adjective in The Merchant of Venice: “For it appears, by manifest proceeding, that…thou hast contrived against the very life of the defendant”.
The verb is still used frequently in this way: for example, people can manifest their dissatisfaction, or symptoms of an illness can manifest themselves. Lack of confidence in a company can manifest itself through a fall in share price.
The meaning of making something clear is reflected in the related noun manifesto: a ‘written statement of the beliefs, aims, and policies of an organization, especially a political party’ – a word that also resonated in 2024 as scores of nations, including the United Kingdom and India, held elections where parties shared manifestos.
