Terminology – WOTTIES 2025 – Cambridge Dictionary shortlisted Words of the Year.

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Cambridge Dictionary shortlisted and defined the following terms, all related to Artificial Intelligence, as competing entries for the Word of the Year 2025. 

"slop: content on the internet that is of very low quality, especially when it is created by artificial intelligence.  

pseudonymization: a process in which information that relates to a particular person, for example a name or email address, is changed to a number or name that has no meaning so that it is impossible to see who the information relates to.

memeify: to turn an event, image, person etc. into a meme (= an idea, joke, image, video, etc. that is spread very quickly on the internet.)"

Cambridge Dictionary also tracked the emergence of the following terms in  in 2025, providing the following definitions and usage examples:

"glazing is the excessive use of praise or flattery, especially by AI chatbots, in a way that seems insincere and artificial.    

Example: When the chatbot’s responses lean too far into glazing, it immediately sounds my alarm bells.    

 bias is the object of a fan’s stanning, or excessive devotion to a singer, band or other media star. It is used especially by fans of the South Korean music genre K-pop.    

Example: My bias is V from BTS – he has the best outfits!    

 vibey describes a place that has a good vibe.    

Example: The place is vibey, has a great buzz, and is perfect for people watching.    

doom spending is the activity of spending money that you cannot afford in order to make yourself feel better. People sometimes engage in it when they feel anxious and uncertain about the future.    

Example: Although doom spending may provide short-term emotional relief, it can also have a long-term impact on your financial stability."

More than 6000 words were added to the Cambridge Dictionary in 2025.  Among these new words:

"delulu: a play on the word delusional, means ‘believing things that are not real or true, usually because you choose to’. 

Example:  In March 2025, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese used the Gen-Z phrase “delulu with no solulu” in a speech in parliament.

tradwife: short for traditional wife – ‘a married woman, especially one who posts on social media, who stays at home doing cooking, cleaning, etc. and has children that she takes care of’ – reflects a growing, controversial Instagram and TikTok trend that embraces traditional gender roles.

Example: Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm has been dubbed the queen of tradwifery. 

snackable, used to describe content that you can read or play in small amounts or for a short time, reflects our ever-shrinking attention spans. 

mouse jiggler, a device or piece of software used to make it seem as though you are working when you are not. 

forever chemical, refers to ‘artificial chemicals that are used to make many different products, that stay in the environment for a long time and are harmful to the health of people and animals’."

Reference

'Parasocial' is Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year.

https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/parasocial-is-cambridge-dictionary-word-of-the-year-2025  

Terminology – WOTTIES 2025 – Cambridge Dictionary “parasocial” Word of the Year

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Cambridge Dictionary selected the term parasocial as Word of the Year (WOTY) 2025. In a nutshell,  parasocial refers to a one-way relationship with a celebrity, an influencer, or even with a non-human entity such as a ChatBot. A person or entity that one has never met, but with whom a strong sense of connection nonetheless exists.

Cambridge Dictionary defines the term 'parasocial' as: 

"involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves or a famous person they do not know, a character in a film, book, TV series etc., or an Artificial Intelligence." 

Simone Schnalle, Professor of Experimental Social Psychology at Cambridge University, explains why the term parasocial is the perfect WOTY for 2025, and most importantly, why people form parasocial relationships. 

Reference
'Parasocial' is Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year. 
https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/parasocial-is-cambridge-dictionary-word-of-the-year-2025

Terminology - WOTTIES 2022 - Cambridge Dictionary "homer"

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

The Cambridge Dictionary has selected homer as the 2022 Word Of The Year (WOTY). Nothing new about this word in the United States, where it has been a winner, at least since the dawn of baseball. 

A homer is a home run, originally in baseball, one of America’s favorite sports. Indeed, a homer is scored when the batter is able to hit the ball with such force that s/he is able to run through all the bases to home base, in a single bat. When all the bases are loaded with previous players, a homer also scores points for each player, moving to home base. The YouTube video below shows Aaron Judge's 62nd home run, on Oct. 4, 2022. A homer, marking a record-breaking streak for any single player, in a single-season of American League professional baseball. 

What is extraordinary about the selection of homer (not Homer, the Greek) as WOTY in 2022, is that searches for the word homer, at the online Cambridge Dictionary website, were reported to have spiked to 65,000, in a single day, on May 4th, when homer was wordle in the free, Internet word-guessing game, called Wordle®. An increase in searches that made homer the 2022 WOTY, in part because Cambridge Dictionary selects WOTTIES based on the qualitative and quantitative observation of terms searched online at the dictionary’s website, and in part because the American-English term homer threw so many British-English speakers into search mode.

However, you might also be wondering, what is Wordle®? Alternatively, why isn’t wordle, or the verb to wordle, the 2022 WOTY? After all, Wordle® is a word-guessing game that has taken over the Internet, even prompting the New York Times to purchase the online game for a low-seven figure. (Cunningham, 1-30-2022).

Briefly, in response to the first question about the Wordle® game: Josh Wardle’s Wordle®, is a cross between crossword puzzle and the Wheel of Fortune. An empty grid of 5 by 6 squares enables players to guess the 5-letter wordle of the day, in six attempts. The only clues provided are also the instructions, included below:

To answer the second question about the term wordle (noun or verb) not making the 2022 WOTY cut, the reason is probably that too few people queried the Cambridge Dictionary for the term wordle, preventing the word from even becoming a 2022 WOTY candidate. In fact, all of the searches that spiked for 2022 WOTY candidates were apparently other five-letter wordles. Wordles such as bayou, tacit, caulk and humor, with American-English spelling reported to have driven some of the searches, together with a bit of British-English speaker annoyance for getting stumped. Conversely, searches for the wordle bloke, the British-English equivalent of fellow in American-English, were also reported to have spiked, the wordle bloke, this time having vexed folks from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. 

References

Cunningham, A. (1-31-2022) NYTimes spends low seven figure to by Wordle. NY Times
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/01/whats-a-five-letter-word-for-acquire-nyt-buys-wordle-for-low-7-figures/

The Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year 2022
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/editorial/woty

Rosenberg, A. (Oct. 3, 2022). What’s Wordle? Here’s everything you need to know.
https://mashable.com/article/wordle-word-game-what-is-it-explained (since Oct, 2021 – John Wardle – inventor)

Terminology - WOTTIES 2021 - 'Perseverance' Cambridge Dictionary WOTY 2021

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

The Cambridge Dictionary Word of theYear (WOTY) is “perseverance” (without a capital “P”) although related to Perseverance (with a capital “P”), the robotic geologist-astrophysicists rover that landed on planet Mars, on February 18, 2021.  Indeed, the selection was based on word search counts, which increased to 243,000 at the Cambridge Dictionary website, in 2021. A significant increase in visibility of the word, including a spike of 30,487 searches between Feb. 19th and 25th, 2021, corresponding to the extraordinary footage (below) of the Perseverance rover entry, descent and landing sequence (EDL), broadcasted from planet Mars, 300 million miles away, and edited for viewing during that timeframe.

Thus, whereas Perseverance the rover was named to capture triumph on the shoulders of the many who dared to stumble in the odyssey of Mars exploration, the term perseverance also undoubtedly took on heightened significance in 2021. A year where the will of the people also triumphed in the face of pandemic adversity, despite the more than 5 million lives lost to the SARS2- CoV19 (WHO Dashboards). 

Crowned Word of the Year 2021, perseverance thus celebrates the human spirit under very different circumstances. The YouTube video included below captures the triumph of perseverance in space exploration with video footage of mesmerizing clarity, witnessing Perseverance’s EDL. In other words,  entry into the Martian atmosphere at 12,500 mph, with a registered heat peak, measured at 2370 degrees Fahrenheit (1300 degrees Celsius) caused by massive speed deceleration to 1000 mph, using Martian atmosphere. The footage also shows the perfect orchestration of parachute deployment, separation of the heat shield and aeroshell protection, firing of the descent stage retro-rockets, and separation from the descent stage to touchdown.

Otherwise, on planet Earth, perseverance was certainly put to test everywhere. 

References

Cambridge Dictionary https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/

NASA - Perseverance Mars Rover 
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-perseverance-rover-22-days-from-mars-landing

Staff (Nov. 17, 2021) Cambridge Dictionary names 'perseverance' Word of the Year 2021.   https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/cambridge-dictionary-names-perseverance-word-of-the-year-2021

WHO - Coronavirus Dashboards https://covid19.who.int/

Terminology – WOTTIES 2018 (1) Cambridge Dictionary

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

‘Tis the WOTY season! WOTY (rhymes with potty) is an acronym for Word Of The Year.

The British Cambridge Dictionary, People’s Word of the Year 2018 is nomophobia. This means that according to the Cambridge Dictionary worldwide audience, nomophobia is the word that best sums up 2018.

Nomophobia, huh?

Nomophobia is “fear or worry at the idea of being without your mobile phone or unable to use it”. Nomophobia is a technically a blend, collapsing several words into a new one, in this case “No mobile phone phobia”. The earliest use of the term nomophobia is traced back to 2008. Because of its staying power, nomophobia was added the Cambridge Dictionary early in 2018. The term is popular rather than scientific. In other words, you may never find it listed in the American Psychiatric Association DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

The rest of the words in the short list of four WOTTIES, that the Cambridge Dictionary editors select, is always as interesting as the single word that topped them all by popular vote. 

The short list of Cambridge Dictionary 2018 WOTTIES includes the following:

•  gender gap - "a difference between the way men and women are treated in society, or between what men and women do and achieve"

•  ecocide - "destruction of the natural environment of an area, or very great damage to it"

• no platforming - "the practice of refusing someone an opportunity to make their ideas or beliefs known publicly, because you think these beliefs are dangerous or unacceptable".

References

DSM-5 - American Psychiatric Association

https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm

The People’s Word Of The Year 2018

https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2018/11/29/the-peoples-word-of-2018/

About words – Cambridge Dictionary Blog

https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/