2025’s Words of the Year, So Far

As 2025 draws to a close, the lexicographers and linguists at the world’s most used and well-known dictionaries have begun their sometimes polarizing annual ritual of trying to capture the year’s zeitgeist through a single word.

Different dictionary publishers have had different rationales—and methodologies—for picking their so-called “word of the year.” Some perform textual analyses of billions of words ; others assess what people have searched for . Whatever the case, though, the chosen words have, over the years, become a cultural moment and subject of media fascination.

Here are some of the words of 2025 so far:

Cambridge Dictionary: parasocial

The Cambridge Dictionary, which has published a word of the year since 2015, looked at a sustained trend of increased searches bef