'Slop' Wins Overseas Buzzword of the Year Award, a Word Used Like 'AI Slop'
Publisher Merriam-Webster selected 'slop,' a word referring to muddy water or leftover food, as the Word of the Year for 2025. In 2025, the phrase 'AI slop,' referring to 'low-quality, inferior products generated by AI,' became all the rage.
Word of the Year 2025 | Slop | Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster defines slop as 'low-quality digital content mass-produced by AI,' stating, 'The 2025 slop deluge included absurd videos, bizarre advertising images, cheesy propaganda, realistic-looking fake news, poorly written AI-generated books, and loads of talking cats. People found it annoying, but they devoured it voraciously.'
Slop is reminiscent of a wet, unpleasant sound, like slime or sludge, and was first used in the 1700s to mean 'soft mud.' Later, in the 1800s, it came to mean 'food waste, such as pig feed,' and more generally, to refer to 'garbage' or 'low-value or worthless products.'
Merriam-Webster also lists some other 'words that stood out in search data for 2025.'
◆Gerrymander
Gerrymandering refers to the practice of dividing states, school districts, and other entities into electoral districts to give certain groups or political parties an unfair advantage. The term is derived from Elbridge Gerry, an American politician from the late 1700s to early 1800s. As governor of Massachusetts, Gerry attempted to reshape electoral districts to favor his party's congressional candidates. This technique resulted in highly irregular and bizarrely shaped districts, particularly Gerry's own district, which resembles a newt. An opposition lawmaker who saw this bizarre district drawing added legs, wings, and a head to Gerry's district and exclaimed, 'Now we have
In 2025, 'gerrymandering' became a popular search term as Republicans and Democrats redistricted to gain an electoral advantage.
by Elkanah Tisdale (1771-1835) (often falsely attributed to Gilbert Stuart)
◆Touch Grass
Touch Grass means 'participating in normal activities in the real world, especially as opposed to online experiences and interactions.' The expression is often used to describe people who have become so immersed online that they have lost touch with the real world. Searches for the term spiked in September 2025, around the time of the Charlie Kirk murder , when Utah Governor Spencer Cox gave an impassioned speech about the dangers of social media, urging people to 'log off, turn off, touch grass, hug your family, and go outside and do good in your community.'
While initially perceived as a derogatory term, it has become a kind of aspiration, even a challenging goal, for many people looking to break their digital addiction, leading to the creation of apps that block 'mindless scrolling' and only unlock it until the user literally touches grass.
◆Performative
The word 'performative' means 'a pretense designed to enhance one's image or impress others.' In 2025, performative political and social movements, including the 'Woke' movement, were seen, and many events were derided as 'performative.'
◆Tariff
Tariff is a word frequently used by President Donald Trump, and when the tariff policy began, many people searched for information to understand the exact meaning of tariffs.
◆Six Seven
Six Seven is a slang term that became popular in 2025 among Generation Alpha (generally born between 2010 and 2024). It has no particular meaning and is usually chanted as 'Six Seven' accompanied by a distinctive juggling-like hand gesture. Its meaninglessness caused it to quickly spread among teenagers.
The name originally came from rapper Skrilla's song 'Doot Doot (6 7),' which features the repeated number '67' as its hook. The song gained popularity online through videos and memes featuring 6-foot-7 NBA star LaMelo Ball, and skyrocketed after a fan-recorded video of the song at a youth basketball game in March 2025 went viral.
67 Kid (ORIGINAL) - YouTube
Conclave
Searches for the word 'conclave' spiked after Pope Francis' death in April 2025, when Roman Catholic cardinals from around the world gathered at the Vatican to select his successor.
◆Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Lake Chagoggagogmanchauggagogchaubanagangaamaug in the United States is the longest-standing place name in the United States. In 2025, the lake appeared in the game 'Spelling Bee' within the popular game 'Roblox,' causing quite a stir.
Macquarie Dictionaries named 'AI slop,' Cambridge Dictionaries named 'parasocial,' Dictionary.com named 'Six Seven,' and Oxford University Press named 'rage bait' as its Word of the Year.
Oxford University's Word of the Year for 2025 is 'rage bait' - GIGAZINE
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