2025 Word of the Year: Slop(merriam-webster.com)
merriam-webster.com
2025 Word of the Year: Slop
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-of-the-year
13 comments
Do any websites collect lists of WOTY by year?
hm, suppose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_the_year
So anybody making a site for it now would be struck down by Google Panda. It's a shame there's no niche to support a middle ground.
This one is an apt pick. I only worry it’s early and the true wave of slop is not yet upon us.
we badly need AI-free spaces
I'd like to see an examination of how the phrase 'human slop' rose and fell in this year. Initially emerging as a counterpoint, it's now receded.
I watched that show on netflix where the professional song writers would write potential hit songs.. that was the closest thing to human slop I've seen
I was thinking "upended," but "slop" is also a fine choice.
jackfranklyn(2)
I've noticed amoung colleagues who are not fond of ai usage they love to call out "slop". If a line of code is too verbose or too succinct it must be ai. If a routine doesn't use the function they created when it's something tangentially related it must be ai slop. It's like the new form of gatekeeping.
Oxford 'rage bait' https://corp.oup.com/news/the-oxford-word-of-the-year-2025-i...
Collins 'vibe coding' https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/collins-w...
Cambridge 'parasocial' https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2025/11/18/cambridge-di...
Dictionary.com '67' https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-year-2025/