According to a news release from the dictionary, “Slop” is Merriam-Webster's word of 2025. The word is defined as "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence," or AI.
Merriam-Webster said the term reflected the “absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books”, which have dominated millions of people's social media feeds this year.
Greg Barlow, President of Merriam-Webster, added, "All that stuff was dumped on our screens, and the Word of the Year captured it in just four letters. "The English language came through again."
Several other words stood out for Merriam-Webster's editors:
- Gerrymander: "to divide or arrange (a territorial unit) into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage".
- Touch grass: "to participate in normal activities in the real world, especially as opposed to online experiences and interactions".
- Performative: "made or done for show (as to bolster one’s own image or make a positive impression on others)"
- Tariff: "a schedule of duties imposed by a government on imported or, in some countries, exported goods" - was another word that piqued interest.
- Six seven: "a nonsensical expression connected to a song and a basketball player" - and Dictionary.com selected this as their word of the year back in October.
- Conclave: "a private meeting or secret assembly" - was another.
Merriam-Webster also liked Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, a different name for Webster Lake in Massachusetts. It earned its place on the most-searched list of words on merriam-webster.com because of its appearance in the online gaming world, Roblox.
Merriam-Webster's word of the year selection is based on what people are searching for, which could also reflect current events, with 2020 and 2021 being 'pandemic' and 'vaccine'. In 2024, the dictionary selected 'polarization', "division into two sharply distinct opposites," as its word of the year due to the fraught state of American politics and society at the time.
Elsewhere, Cambridge Dictionary chose 'parasocial', a relationship felt by someone toward a celebrity they do not know, as its word of the year after paying attention to the reactions of pop megastar Taylor Swift's legion of fans to her engagement to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
And Oxford University Press, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, selected 'rage bait', “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage," as its word of the year after over 30,000 people voted for it.