For us linguists, the flurry of “word of the year” bulletins from dictionaries and publishers is a vacation custom as expected as mince pies. The phrases of the yr aren’t only a a laugh peek into new slang and language adjustments, in addition they let us know reasonably a little in regards to the worries, tendencies and obsessions of the English-speaking global.
And this yr’s listing has one transparent theme. In 2025, synthetic intelligence (AI) performed an enormous position in our places of work, social media feeds, tune and picture, and now – dictionaries.
One of the vital first bulletins this yr was once Collins Dictionary, who decided on “vibe coding” as their phrase of the yr. Vibe coding refers to the usage of AI gear to generate code fairly than manually coding tool methods.
After I first heard this, my preliminary response was once that it is a very area of interest word, now not in most of the people’s vocabulary. Then again, if we glance again to Cambridge Dictionary’s variety for 2023 – which was once “hallucinate”, regarding the false or nonsense responses generated via AI fashions – many of us felt the similar. Now, we often check with the hallucinogenic houses of AI output, rolling our eyes at one of the most solutions it supplies. Language can and does alternate, and briefly.
Such output can every so often be described as AI slop, “low-quality content created by generative AI, often containing errors, and not requested by the user” – Macquarie Dictionary’s 2025 phrase of the yr. The Economist and Merriam-Webster additionally went with “slop”, suggesting that this content material, alternatively unappealing, is an important a part of our adoption of this new generation.
“Clanker” is any other phrase which made most of the shortlists this yr, getting used to as a derogatory phrase to explain an AI supply.
Feeling such as you’ve had sufficient of AI? For lots of, the other could also be true: for its 2025 phrase of the yr, Cambridge Dictionary selected “parasocial”, increasing the definition to account for folks’s relationships with AI partners and chatbots.
Every other time period that displays the AI-driven combat over authenticity is “glazing”, which seemed on Collins Dictionary’s shortlist. Outlined as “to praise or flatter excessively, often undeservedly”, glazing is one thing that might be recognisable to somebody who’s ever requested ChatGPT to assist them come to a decision (OpenAI rolled again a ChatGPT replace in early 2025 because of sycophancy within the chatbot).
Opting for the yr’s best phrase
Regardless of what you may believe, those phrases don’t seem to be decided on via lexicographers collecting in a secret conclave. Important time is spent on monitoring the use of phrases during the yr sooner than making choices on contenders.
The lexicographers then get a hold of shortlists of phrases. Readers too can have their say, as most of the publishers, together with Oxford College Press and Macquarie, put their possible choices to the general public vote. The phrases with essentially the most votes are then formally topped as phrase of the yr.
Memes and web tendencies are a wealthy supply for phrases of the yr.
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Traditionalists would possibly argue that many of those phrases are in truth a couple of phrases. However so long as they constitute a “single unit of meaning”, they’re thought to be worthy winners. Nor are they at all times new phrases. Neologisms generally is a new or expanded that means of a phrase which already has a long historical past (see “parasocial” – feeling a reference to any person we don’t in reality know in individual – which applies to Beatlemania and Taylor Swift fanatics up to AI).
Web tradition continues to offer wealthy pickings for phrases of the yr. “Rage bait” was once Oxford Dictionary’s variety. This comes to social media content material meant to control customers into responding negatively to a put up or attacking earlier responses. The posts and next feedback enchantment to our feelings, however now not in a great way. Naming this behaviour displays our expanding consciousness of such manipulative tactics and with a bit of luck, the beginning of many of us refusing to interact with on-line negativity.
“Memeify”, the motion of making memes, even made Cambridge’s shortlist for 2025. My private favorite phrase of the yr in 2025 was once pushed via basketball-related memes, particularly “67”, which was once Dictionary.com’s selection.
This contribution welcomes technology alpha to the linguistics desk. Historically, new slang phrases would were first utilized by older youngsters as they established friendships and their identities outdoor their households. However this yr displays that our youngest technology workforce is seamlessly navigating on-line content material, and in doing so, is already influencing language use.
