Every year Merriam-Webster, Oxford, Cambridge, Collins and Dictionary.com each name a Word of the Year: a word that captured that year's news and conversations. Here is every pick, with how to say it, what it means and a tip for spelling it.
The 2026 picks are added as each dictionary announces them, usually between late October and mid December. Picks that are in the Spelling Bee Hive word list link to their own page, where you can hear them pronounced and practise spelling them.
Updated October 14, 2026.
2026 Words of the Year: none announced yet.
Dictionary.com: not announced yet - expected in late October or November.
Collins: not announced yet - expected around the start of November.
Cambridge: not announced yet - expected in mid to late November.
Oxford: not announced yet - expected around the start of December.
Merriam-Webster: not announced yet - expected in early to mid December.
2025 Words of the Year: 5 announced.
Merriam-Webster: slop. Announced December 2025. Say it SLOP. Poor-quality pictures, videos and writing mass-produced with artificial intelligence and posted online. Spelling tip: Four letters and one vowel: S-L-O-P, like mop and top.
Oxford: rage bait. Announced December 2025. Say it RAYJ bayt. Online posts made to provoke anger, so that people react to them, comment on them and share them. Spelling tip: Two words. Rage ends in a silent E; bait has A-I in the middle, like wait and trait.
Cambridge: parasocial. Announced November 2025. Say it pair-uh-SOH-shul. Describes a one-sided connection someone feels with a person they do not actually know, such as a celebrity, a fictional character or an AI chatbot. Spelling tip: One word: para + social. The C in social sounds like SH: S-O-C-I-A-L.
Collins: vibe coding. Announced November 2025. Say it VYBE KOH-ding. Making software by telling an AI tool in everyday language what you want, instead of writing the code yourself. Spelling tip: Two words. Vibe keeps its silent E, but code drops its E before -ing: coding.
Dictionary.com: 67. Announced October 2025. Say it six-SEV-en. A burst of slang, said "six-seven", that spread through schools in 2025. It has no fixed meaning; people mostly say it for fun. Spelling tip: Written with digits. Spelled out, it is two number words: six (S-I-X) and seven (S-E-V-E-N), never sixty-seven.
2024 Words of the Year: 5 announced.
Merriam-Webster: polarization. Announced December 2024. Say it poh-luh-ruh-ZAY-shun. A sharp split into two opposing groups, for example over opinions or beliefs. Spelling tip: Build it in steps: polar, polarize, polarization. The E of polarize drops before -ation. British English writes polarisation.
Oxford: brain rot. Announced December 2024. Say it BRAYN rot. The idea that spending too much time on silly, low-quality online content dulls the mind; also used for that kind of content. Spelling tip: Two words. Brain has A-I in the middle, like rain and train.
Cambridge: manifest. Announced November 2024. Say it MAN-uh-fest. To picture and focus on something you want, believing that doing so will help it happen. Spelling tip: Man + i + fest. The middle vowel sounds like "uh" but is spelled with an I.
Dictionary.com: demure. Announced November 2024. Say it dih-MYOOR. Quiet, modest and reserved in manner. It went viral in 2024 through the phrase "very demure, very mindful". Spelling tip: D-E-M-U-R-E. The ending rhymes with pure and is spelled the same way: -ure.
Collins: brat. Announced November 2024. Say it BRAT. Long used for a badly behaved child; in 2024 it also came to mean a confident, carefree, independent attitude, after the singer Charli XCX's album Brat. Spelling tip: Just four letters with a short A: B-R-A-T.
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