If you spent any time on the internet this year, you probably felt like you were drowning. Not in water, obviously. In slop.
It’s everywhere. That’s why Merriam-Webster just crowned it. Honestly, it’s the most honest choice they’ve made in a decade. We aren’t just looking at the word of the year 2025 list to learn new vocabulary; we are looking at it to make sense of why our social feeds feel like a digital junkyard.
Language is weird. One day you’re using normal words, and the next, your ten-year-old nephew is yelling 67 at a dinner table while your favorite dictionary is trying to explain vibe coding. It’s a lot to take in.
The Big Winners: What Topped the Word of the Year 2025 List
Every major dictionary has its own "vibe" when picking a winner. Some go for the high-brow academic stuff, while others basically just scroll TikTok until they find something that makes them feel old. Here is how the heavy hitters landed for 2025.
Merriam-Webster: Slop
This is the big one. Merriam-Webster defines slop as low-quality digital content, usually generated in massive quantities by AI. Think of those weird Facebook images of "Jesus made of shrimp" or those AI-written travel blogs that tell you to visit a park that closed in 1994.
It’s the perfect word. It sounds gross. It feels wet and heavy. Back in the 1700s, it meant soft mud. By the 1800s, it was what you fed to pigs. Now? It’s what the algorithms feed to us.
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Oxford: Rage Bait
Oxford University Press let the public vote, and over 30,000 people decided that rage bait was the defining spirit of 2025. It’s that specific type of post designed solely to make you angry so you’ll comment, share, and drive up the engagement numbers. We’ve all fallen for it. You see a video of someone making a "lasagna" out of Fruit Loops and raw steak, and you just have to tell them they’re wrong. That’s the bait. You’re the fish.
Cambridge: Parasocial
Cambridge went a bit deeper. They updated the definition of parasocial—those one-sided relationships we have with celebrities—to include AI chatbots. People are actually forming emotional bonds with code. It spiked in June 2025 after a massive streamer, IShowSpeed, blocked a fan for being "too parasocial." It’s a bit sad, really. But it’s the world we live in now.
Dictionary.com: 67
This was the wildcard. Dictionary.com chose 67 (pronounced "six-seven"). If you aren't a Gen Alpha kid or a very confused middle school teacher, this probably means nothing to you. It comes from a viral song and a kid dancing, but it evolved into a linguistic "shrug." It’s a word that means whatever you want it to mean, which is basically the ultimate Gen Z/Alpha power move.
Why These Words Actually Matter
You might think these lists are just marketing stunts. They kind of are. But they also act as a time capsule.
Looking at the word of the year 2025 list, you see a clear theme: exhaustion. We are tired of the "slop" on our screens. We are annoyed by the "rage bait" in our news cycles. We are trying to find "parasocial" connection in a world that feels increasingly automated.
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There’s a reason touch grass was a runner-up for Merriam-Webster. Everyone is desperate to log off.
The AI Takeover
Notice how many of these words are tied to technology?
- Vibe Coding: (Collins Dictionary's winner) Writing software by just telling an AI the "vibe" of what you want.
- Agentic: AI that can actually do things on its own, not just chat.
- Clanker: A derogatory term for AI that started in sci-fi but went mainstream this year.
We are naming our new overlords, and we’re doing it with a mix of fascination and total mockery. Using "slop" to describe AI content is a way of reclaiming power. It says, "Sure, you can generate a million images, but most of them are garbage."
The Shortlist: The Ones That Almost Made It
The words that didn't win are often just as interesting as the ones that did. They tell the side stories of 2025.
Aura Farming was everywhere on the Oxford shortlist. It’s the act of trying to build up your "aura" or your "coolness" through very specific, often subtle, social media posts. It’s about the vibe. If you try too hard, you lose aura. If you look like you don't care but still look amazing, you're farming aura.
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Then there’s Broligarchy. This one got political. It describes the rise of a small group of tech-bros who hold massive amounts of power and wealth. It’s a blend of "bro" and "oligarchy." It’s funny, but it’s also a pretty sharp critique of the current state of Silicon Valley.
Biohack also made the rounds. Everyone is suddenly obsessed with living until they're 150 by drinking specialized powders and wearing three different smart rings. It’s gone from a niche hobby for tech billionaires to something your neighbor does before his morning jog.
How to Actually Use This List
Don't go out and start saying "67" in a business meeting. Please.
But do pay attention to the shift in how we talk about the internet. If you're a content creator, knowing that the world is pivoting against slop is huge. It means people are craving "real" things. They want human errors. They want messy, authentic, non-AI-generated thoughts.
The word of the year 2025 list isn't just a list of slang. It's a map of our collective brain rot and our attempt to cure it.
Actionable Takeaways for Your Vocabulary
- Identify the Slop: Start calling out low-effort AI content. Once you name it, it loses its power to distract you.
- Avoid the Bait: When you see a post that makes your blood boil instantly, ask yourself: "Is this rage bait?" Usually, the answer is yes. Don't give them the click.
- Touch Grass: It was a runner-up for a reason. 2025 was the year the digital world became too much. The best way to win the language game is to occasionally go somewhere where words don't matter as much as the weather.
The words we choose reflect who we are. In 2025, we chose words that prove we’re still human, even if we’re currently surrounded by robots.
Key Next Steps:
Check your own social media habits. Are you consuming slop, or are you finding value? Take a look at the full shortlists from Oxford and Merriam-Webster to see which terms actually resonated with your year. The more you understand the language of the present, the less likely you are to get lost in the noise.