Language Mirrors Life: Rage Bait, Gen Z, and Oxford’s Word of the Year

The words that define us: Oxford English Dictionary English Editor, Fiona McPherson, on Rage Bait, Gen Z, and the evolution of Oxford’s Word of the Year

xEach year, when Oxford University Press announces its Word of the Year, the world pauses for a moment to reflect on what that single expression reveals about our lives. Behind this cultural ritual sits Fiona McPherson, Executive Editor at Oxford University Press, who has spent more than two decades watching language shift, stretch and reinvent itself in response to the world around us. Speaking exclusively to DC, she opens up about the process, the patterns, the public vote, and why “rage bait” captured the mood of 2025.

For many, the Oxford Word of the Year appears almost like magic: one neat, definitive term that somehow sums up twelv