Patents on the soles of your shoes...: December 2025

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

Terminology – WOTTIES 2025 – Macquarie Dictionary shortlisted Words of the Year

Terms competing for the Word of the Year are always at least as interesting as the winner of them all. The Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English shortlisted the following terms competing for the Word of the Year 2025. Supporting Macquarie Dictionary definitions and graphics are also included.

ate (and left no crumbs) – To perform or execute something flawlessly.

Australian sushi – Any of various thick, uncut sushi rolls with the nori wrapped around the filling in order to be eaten by hand.

BAL rating – A system of assessing a building’s potential exposure to ember attack, radiant heat, and direct flame of a bush fire.

bathroom camping – The act of isolating oneself in a bathroom or bathroom cubicle for a period of time, to seek solitude, avoid work, or regulate emotions.

bird-dogging – The act of confronting a politician at a public event with direct questions or issues, aiming to bring attention to a special issue.

blind box – A type of mystery box which contains an unseen collectible toy or figurine.

femgore – A subgenre of horror in which female protagonists are given agency over the narrative, and while still victimized, objectified or exploited to an extent, are not passive.

Ozempic face – A condition resulting from the use of a semaglutide drug, characterized by the wrinkling and sagging of the face due to rapid weight loss.

quadball – The new name for a real-life quidditch, where the aim is to score by putting a ball through any of three vertical hoops at the end of the field.

Roman Empire – Any of various events, interests, subjects, etc., that one finds themselves frequently thinking about, especially one considered unusual.

Six-Seven – A nonsense expression in which each hand is held out to the side with palms facing up, alternatively moving each up and down as if comparing weights. Also 6,7.

References
Macquarie Dictionary
https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/?time=1765148169657
The Macquarie Dictionary Committee (Nov. 24, 2025). Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year for 2025.
https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/macquarie-dictionary-word-of-the-year-for-2025/

Monday, December 15, 2025

Terminology – WOTTIES 2025 – Macquarie Dictionary “AI slop” Word of the Year

The Macquarie Dictionary is Australia's National Dictionary of Australian English. On November 24th, 2025, the Macquarie Dictionary Committee* announced that it had selected “AI slop” as the 2025 Word of the Year. A selection backed 100% by the People’s Choice, crowdsourced at the Dictionary’s website.

The Macquarie Dictionary defined “AI slop” as “low-quality content created by generative AI, often containing errors, and not requested by the user”. The definition was illustrated as shown below.

The Macquarie Dictionary Committee also selected two Honorable Mentions: the terms “clanker” and “medical misogyny”. By contrast, the People’s Choice only converged with the Committee’s choice on the term “medical misogeny”, electing for the Second Honorable Mention, the term “attention economy.”

The Macquarie Dictionary defined the honorable mentions as follows. Each definition was also illustrated as shown below.

clanker - A usually derogatory term for an artificial intelligence-driven robot which completes tasks that are normally performed by a human.

medical misogeny - Entrenched prejudice against females in the context of medical treatment and knowledge, especially in the area of reproductive health.

attention economy - An economy in which human attention is treated as a major commodity, especially in advertising.

______

Note
The Macquarie Dictionary Committee comprised:
- The Editorial Team at Macquarie Dictionary
- David Astle – crossword maker, radio host, and writer.
- Tiger Webb – language research specialist, ABC.

References

Macquarie Dictionary

https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/?time=1765148169657
The Macquarie Dictionary Committee (Nov. 24, 2025). Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year for 2025.
https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/macquarie-dictionary-word-of-the-year-for-2025/

Sunday, December 7, 2025

Terminology - WOTTIES 2025 - Collins Dictionary shortlisted Words of the Year

Terms shortlisted for the Collins Word of the Year (WOTY) are no less interesting mirrors of a year’s worth of trends and events. Collins posted the following nine 2025 Words of the Year, competing with “vibe coding”, the one term that was selected as the 2025 Word of the Year. A list of nine terms, each including a copyrighted Harper Collins definition, as well as a supporting still image, and/or GIF animation.

aura farming: The deliberate cultivation of a distinctive and charismatic persona.

biohacking: The activity of altering the natural processes of one's body in an attempt to improve one's health and longevity.

broligarchy: A small clique of very wealthy men who exert political influence.

clanker: A derogatory term for a computer, robot, or source of artificial intelligence.

GIF animation file unavailable for "clanker".

Visit https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty

coolcation: A holiday in a place of cool climate.

glaze: To praise or flatter (someone) excessively or undeservedly.

HENRY (acronym for High Earner, Not Rich Yet): A person who has not accrued substantial wealth from their high income due to their lifestyle or external financial demands.

micro-retirement: A break taken between periods of employment in order to pursue personal interests.

GIF animation file unavailable for "micro-retirement".

Visit https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty

task-masking: The act of giving a false impression that one is being productive in the workplace.

References
Quinn, R. (Nov. 6, 2025). Collins’ Word of the Year 2025: AI meets authenticity as society shifts. Collins Love of Language Blog.
https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/collins-word-of-the-year-2025-ai-meets-authenticity-as-society-shifts/#google_vignette
Collins Word of the Year (WOTY)
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty

Wednesday, December 3, 2025

Terminology – WOTTIES 2025 – Collins Dictionary “vibe coding” Word of the Year

Each year, the major English language dictionaries publish The Words of the Year (WOTY, plural WOTTIES). A list of terms, and the winner of them all, are selected by a committee of terminologists, often backed by the number of times the term(s) were searched online, and/or crowdsourced votes.

Collins Dictionary selected “vibe coding” as the 2025 Word of the Year winner. A term first used on the social media platform X, on February 2, 2025, by Andrej Karpathy, former Director of AI at Tesla and founding engineer at OpenAI. In the X post, Karpathy described how easy it was to use AI-assisted programming tools, such as Cursor Composer and Claude Sonnet, designed to code and debug upon natural language prompting. He described how the tools were currently so good at executing his prompts that he could “give in to the vibes” (go with the flow) of coding, while “just forgetting that the code even exists”. In other words, he could use AI tools to do the computer programming, without writing and reading the unfolding code, or even attempting to debug it. A new jouissance, indeed!

By implication, according to Cress (2025) at the BBC, even if Karpathy's post on vibe coding addressed insiders, his X post also suggested that anyone could at least program a simple app, without any prior coding knowledge. All the user would have to do is request the program's features and functions. The example Karpathy provided for a weekend website construction project was that he could just ask the AI tool to "decrease the padding on the sidebar by half ", without even having to find the code that would execute such a change to the website's functional appearance.

In turn, Collins defined the term “vibe coding” as "the use of artificial intelligence prompted by natural language to assist with the writing of computer code.” To illustrate the Dictionary's winning 2025 Word of the Year, Collins also posted the below animated GIF.