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The Word of the Year reflects the preoccupations of the time… And in an age of post-truth, deepfakes and creepy online content courtesy of generative AI, Merriam-Webster has crowned the word “slop” as its 2025 Word of the Year.
The dictionary defines “slop” as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”
“The flood of slop in 2025 included absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books, “workslop” reports that waste coworkers’ time… and lots of talking cats. People found it annoying, and people ate it up.”
Merriam-Webster joins Oxford Dictionary, Macquarie, Cambridge Dictionary and Collins in designating a word for 2025 that reflects current anxieties and preoccupations regarding the proliferation of AI and how online users consume generic, soulless content generated by artificial intelligence.
Merriam-Webster adds: “In 2025, amid all the talk about AI threats, slop set a tone that’s less fearful, more mocking. The word sends a little message to AI: when it comes to replacing human creativity, sometimes you don’t seem too superintelligent.”
“Slop” was first used in the 1700s to mean soft mud, but it has evolved more generally to mean something of little value. Moreover, “AI slop”, including clips depicting celebrities and deceased public figures, has raised worries about misinformation, deepfakes and copyright.
Other terms that made this year’s shortlist for Merriam-Webster include:
Gerrymander: To retain Republican control of Congress, Donald Trump has urged maps to be redrawn before the 2026 midterm elections. “To gerrymander is to divide a state, school district, etc. into political units or election districts that give one group or political party an unfair advantage.”
Performative: Performative means “made or done for show (as to bolster one’s own image or make a positive impression on others).” For example, “performative male” is online shorthand for a disingenuous man who pretends to like things women like in order to earn their trust. There’s also a spate of influencers who’ve been called performative for posting surface-level “kindness content”. Merriam-Webster states: “In 2025 many things were mocked as ‘performative’. We saw performative politics and activism, performative wokeness and patriotism, and even performative matcha (in which the photogenic green tea was prepared and consumed to impress a usually online audience).”
Six Seven (6-7): The viral, nonsensical term that exploded in popularity over the summer. It is the Gen Alpha slang term of the year, and you can read all about it here.
Touch grass: The idiomatic phrase which became popular online means “to participate in normal activities in the real world especially as opposed to online experiences and interactions.” The phrase is often aimed at people who spend so much time online that they become disconnected from reality.
Tariffs: Originally from Italian and Arabic for “free of charge,” the word entered English centuries ago. The definition is “a schedule of duties imposed by a government on imported or in some countries exported goods.” The word gained more traction this year because of Donald Trump’s implementation of tariffs he had promised in his campaign. These have sparked a trade war and the tariffs have done little to dent the US federal budget deficit – a staggering $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025.
Conclave: The centuries-old election of a pope that derives its name from the Italian “con clave” (meaning “with a key”) spiked in lookups after the death of Pope Francis in April. But even before the pontiff’s death, the word had a higher volume of searches, driven by the 2024 film Conclave.
Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg: “The name of this lake delighted and baffled us when it started clogging the Top Lookups list on Merriam-Webster.com,” the dictionary’s editors said. They added that the hit Roblox game Spelling Bee accounted for the rise in the lake’s popularity online.