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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Science
Yassin El-Moudden

Rage bait, goblin mode … do words of the year have any real value?

A person places Scrabble tiles on a board.
Some linguists suggest the final choices are selected more to attract public attention than by any deep analysis. Photograph: Wachirawit Iemlerkchai/Alamy

If you have seen a news story declaring 2025’s chosen “word of the year” in recent weeks, you might be forgiven for asking yourself: what, another one?

Depending on which dictionary you turn to, the chosen term this year was either Collins’s “vibe coding”, “parasocial” from Cambridge Dictionaries or their Oxford University Press rival’s “rage bait” – with many other selections besides.

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