As the last Wednesday of the year rolled in, I found myself doing what I did at last year’s end: looking back at the words that followed us around, slipped into conversations, showed up in headlines, or made us pause and say, Wait—when did that become a thing?

Dictionaries, pop culture, and the internet all had a say in shaping 2025’s vocabulary. Some words were brand-new, some were old ones with fresh relevance, and one was—as you might know—a number pretending very convincingly to be a word.

So today, as the year ends, I’m bringing you a few words (and that cheeky number) that captured the vibe of 2025—along with a handful of my personal favorites.

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Words That Shaped 2025 — A Look Back

The WOTYs Across the Dictionaries

📌 Slop — Merriam‑Webster’s Word of the Year

Defined as “shoddy, imitative, or low‑quality content, especially AI‑generated,” slop perfectly captured the digital overgrowth we love to groan about but can’t stop scrolling through. A short, punchy word for the “content era” we have found ourselves in.

📌 Rage bait — Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year

Oxford defines rage bait as “online content deliberately crafted to provoke anger and drive interaction.” It’s so visible everywhere that I think for those who engage in it, it must be equal parts irresistible and exhausting.

📌 67 — Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year

Yes, 67. A number that became playful slang across social media, meaning whatever the moment required—funny, cool, or simply in the know. Dictionary.com rightly noted it reflected “the fluid humor and creativity of digital language.”

📌 Parasocial — Cambridge Dictionary‘s WOTY

Cambridge described parasocial as “a one‑sided relationship in which a person invests emotional energy and interest in someone who is unaware of their existence,” a definition that feels increasingly timely in the age of influencers, streamers, and virtual companions. Like this news article I saw recently, where a woman married an AI character.

📌 Vibe coding — Collins Dictionary’s pick for WOTY

Collins defined this one as “using natural language to describe a desired aesthetic, tone, or concept—often to an AI tool—to shape creative output.” Prompting meets poetry, collaboration meets code. I certainly have been vibe coding, I think…

📌 AI Slop – Macquarie Dictionary’s WOTY (Australia)

Echoing Merriam‑Webster’s choice, AI slop refers to “synthetic, low‑value content produced rapidly by AI systems.” The repetition of the theme across hemispheres said it all—2025 was the year we really confronted what counts as “real” online.

Looking back, these words tell a curious tale of technology, culture, connection, and play — from the profound to the absurd.

Other Viral or Shortlisted Buzzwords (2025) — and the Ones That Made Me Smile

aura farming — The art (or strategy) of cultivating vibes, attention, and perceived coolness.

clanker — Sounds like what it is: awkward, noisy, and just a bit embarrassing.

conclave — An old word with renewed weight, describing quiet rooms and high‑stakes decisions. Likely started in popularity with the movie the year before.

gerrymander — Not new, but newly loud and popular again amid a lot of gerrymandering happenings.

glazing — Once about pottery or pastries, now slang for excessive or performative praise—a delicious semantic twist.

medical misogyny — A necessary term naming what many have long felt but too often saw dismissed: women’s pain not taken seriously.

memeify — To turn an idea, image, or moment into a meme. A thoroughly modern verb for a thoroughly modern habit.

otrovert — For those who shift between social energy and solitude depending on the moment, neatly side‑stepping the old introvert‑extrovert binary. And a word that has me wondering if I am one (for I thought I was an ambivert, but didn’t really feel the definition fit me, so maybe this one fits me better?)

performative — A word that widened its reach, describing gestures big on optics but short on authenticity.

pseudonymization — The distinctly modern act of protecting data privacy with a paper trail—technical, precise, and emblematic of our digital age.

tariff — Another old standby that refused to fade into the background during policy debates and economic updates. (below pic from this year’s golu display at our home)

touch grass — The internet’s favorite reminder to log off, step outside, and re‑connect with something real.

Note

All these dictionary selections and word trends come from official 2025 announcements (Merriam-Webster, OUP, Collins, Cambridge, Dictionary.com, and Macquarie) and other articles referencing viral buzzwords for the year.

Looking back, these words remind me that language, as always, refused to sit still this year. It stretched, borrowed, joked, protested, and adapted—and in one memorable case, even turned into a number that insisted on joining the conversation!

A Personal Reflection

I started this year with the phrase Always Be Curious, Discover, Explore! And I think I did follow it to a large extent by:

• being curious about people, places, and well, food and of course, books
• exploring not only new places but also new roles and career paths
• discovering hidden strengths and more.. in myself and my loved ones.
• making new friends (young and old), and rekindling old ones.

Getting back to 2025’s words, I’m struck by how they reflect not just social and personal anxieties and joys, but also creativity. We wondered if something was real or not, was it an algorithm or authentic, just a performance or genuine, and so much more. And we also played—vibe coding, aura farming, memeifying, sometimes even just saying 67 and laughing because language let us. I know I did that a lot – playing with words, and even saying six seven, given my current work environment is a school 🙂

Thinking about all this shows to me once again the beauty of words—and shows how they evolve, adapt, protest, and surprise us. Words have the power to not only be personal but also hold our collective moods and mark our cultural shifts so very vividly.

And Now, the End of This Post

So, dear reader, what words shaped your 2025? Did any new phrases lodge themselves in your vocabulary—or vanish as quickly as they appeared? I’d love to hear your favorites, your least favorites, and those that made you stop and think.

Here’s to the words we found this year, the stories they carried, and the ones waiting for us in 2026. May they be kinder, braver, and a little less slop‑filled.

Happy New Year! 🌟