Merriam-Webster is sharing its choice for the word to sum up 2025 and it’s … “slop.” While this term used to mean soft mud, it now generally refers to something that has very little value. According to the dictionary, slop is defined as "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence."
“It’s such an illustrative word," says Greg Barlow, Merriam-Webster's president. “It’s part of a transformative technology, AI, and it’s something that people have found fascinating, annoying and a little bit ridiculous.” He adds that slop is basically “absurd videos, weird advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks real,” and “junky AI-written digital books.”⠀
“All that stuff dumped on our screens, captured in just four letters: the English language came through again,” Merriam-Webster explains. While slop being the word of the year may get an eyeroll or two, Barlow says it brings a sense of hope, as the spike in searches for the word show people have become more aware of fake content and they “want things that are genuine.”
- The dictionary’s editors choose the word of the year by reviewing data on which words have seen an increase in searches and usage.
- Merriam-Webster has chosen a word of the year every year since 2003 to capture the current moment.
- Beyond slop, their standout words for 2025 include “gerrymander,” “touch grass,” “performative,” “tariff,” “six seven,” and “conclave.”
Source: ABC News
Scott's Thoughs:
- So, our words of the year, according to popular dictionaries, are “rage bait,” “six seven” and now “slop?” Sounds about right!
- My word of the year would be suck. As in this year has been a big bucket of gray suck.
- Where I come from "slop" is what we feed our pigs. Oink.
