At the end of 2025, many US dictionaries announced their Word of the Year (WotY). Dictionary.com declared “67” WotY last October and Oxford University Press named “rage bait” as their WotY. These have sparked a debate about what a word is since the former is technically two numbers and the latter is two words. That said, my views on what constitutes a “word” have been strongly shaped by Dr. Kuo-ming Sung, my linguistics professor during my undergraduate studies at Lawrence University. To summarize Dr. Sung, if a native speaker says it, it’s never wrong. I think that ethos really encapsulates Dictionary.com’s choice for WotY in 2025. Right or wrong, words of the year represent cultural juggernauts that may or may not define a generation, but certainly encapsulate a moment therein.
67
Dictionary.com has a very concise and, near as I can tell, accurate description of what 67 (pronounced “six-seven”) means—in short: anything, everything, and nothing at all. While there may be no discrete meaning, there is a particular intonation (say the number a little slow, using rising intonation on “six” and fall down on the second syllable of “seven”) and even has a gesture. Having talked about it with several colleagues and a family member who works in a public school, 67 truly has seemed to take over the vocabulary of young folks and perhaps to the exasperation of adults.
My niece has helpfully shared “brisk” to mean “good” and “ants” to mean “bad.”
Dictionary.com Shortlist:
- Agentic
- Aura farming
- Broligarchy
- Clanker
- Dynamite emoji
- Gen Z stare
- Kiss cam
- Overtourism
- Tariff
- Tradwife
- 67
Rage bait
Per Oxford University Press: Rage bait is defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media content”.
Oxford University Press Shortlist
- Aura farming
- Biohack
- Parasocial
Parasocial
Per Cambridge Dictionary: Parasocial means involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series, etc., or an artificial intelligence.
Cambridge Dictionary Shortlist
- Pseudonymization
- Memeify
Vibe coding
Per Collins Dictionary: Vibe coding refers to the use of artificial intelligence prompted by natural language to write computer code.
Collins Dictionary shortlist
- Aura farming
- Biohacking
- Broligarchy
- Clanker
- Coolcation
- Glaze
- Henry
- Micro-retirement
- Taskmasking
- Vibe coding
Slop
Per Merriam-Webster: digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence. I admit, sometimes the AI video slop can be entertaining or relaxing. By the same token, there are only so many “your month is your toilet paper” videos where the options range from sandpaper to cheese grater to lava. The inundation of AI slop videos may have a silver lining, however, if it gets people thinking more critically about content created by AI. Many times, I have done a simple Google search about a specific concept only for the AI results (always given first billing) to confidently tell me the wrong thing. While there may be no going back when it comes to AI everything, Merriam-Webster’s word of the year gives me a little hope that people may a bit more wary about when, where, and how AI gets used.
Merriam-Webster shortlist:
- Gerrymander
- Touch grass
- Performative
- Tariff
- Six seven
- Conclave
- Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
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