Words of the Year 2025 So Far

 by Sybil Johnson

It’s that time of year. I don’t mean Thanksgiving, though it is tomorrow here in the U.S. I mean the time when the words of the year start rolling in. Here’s what’s going on so far.

• Collins, a British dictionary, has been selecting a woty since 2013. Its 2025 word of the year is vibe coding defined as “an emerging software development that turns natural language into computer code using AI”. Lots of shortlisted words. You can find them here. 
  
  
•  Cambridge, another British dictionary, has been choosing its woty since 2015. Its 2025 word of the year is parasocial defined as “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.” 
  
  I find it interesting that AI is included in this. We had a Garmin GPS device (before we had smartphones) that we called “Jill”. We used to love confusing her. Mostly to get back at the snarky "recalculating" we constantly heard.. So,yeah, I shouldn’t be all that surprised about the AI part. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/editorial/word-of-the-year
   
• Macquarie, an Australian dictionary, has been choosing a woty since 2006. Its 2025 word of the year is AI slop which refers to “low-quality content created by generative AI which often contains errors and is not requested by the user.” Yep, seen that. Didn’t know it had a name. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-25/ai-slop-named-macquarie-dictionary-word-of-the-year-2025/106047682
  
  
• dictionary.com has been choosing a woty since 2010. Its word of the year is 67 (pronounced “six-seven”) Never pronounce it as sixty-seven. That just shows your ignorance and age.
  
  This one makes me feel old. I obviously have not been hanging around people of the right age group because I have never heard of this. Apparently searches for “67” dramatically rose in the summer of 2025. Perhaps everyone trying to figure out what those kids are saying? After reading this article, I’m still a little mystified about its meaning. Perhaps it means “so-so” or “maybe this, maybe that.” Seems like it’s hard to define. Sounds like young’uns just wanting to annoy the adults in their lives. Lots of other words were on the shortlist. You can read about them here.

The following dictionaries/organizations have yet to select their words of the year.

• Merriam-Webster usually announces its selection the end of November/beginning of December. 
• Oxford – Voting is now open for the Oxford word of the year. Contenders are aura farming, biohack, rage bait You can vote here: https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/
• American Dialect Society – The society doesn’t choose its woty until its meeting in January. 

What would you choose as the word of the year for 2025?