Trends

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A prevailing tendency or pattern observed in preferences or behaviors can suggest a shift in societal or cultural influences
2. The evolution of styles, ideas, or popular phenomena often reflects broader social or market movements
3. A directional movement in popular styles or ideas indicates changing preferences or cultural influences over time

Etymology: The word "trends" is simply the plural of "trend," and the noun's oldest sense has nothing to do with fashion. In Middle English, "trenden" meant "to roll about, turn, or revolve," a verb inherited from Old English "trendan," which goes back to a Proto-West Germanic verb meaning "to turn, roll, revolve." Its relatives point to rounded things: Old English "trinde" meant "ball," and "tryndel" meant "circle, ring." Dutch "trent" still means "circumference," so the core image is of something turning around a circle. From that sense of revolving came the idea of a direction of movement, and eventually the notion of a line along which things tend to move. A coastline or a river's course could be said to "trend" in a particular direction, and it is this sense of a steady, directional course that gradually carried over to changes in fashion, opinion, and the market. The modern meaning of a movement that many people follow over time grew out of that old image of a circular turn.

Synonyms: patterns, tendencies, movements, fashions, directions

Antonyms: stagnation, uniformity