Caitlin and Trent chat with linguistics scholars Savi Namboodiripad and Daniel Midgley on what word most exemplifies 2025. A pre-existing word that gained a new meaning or usage this year? A word that seemed to be on everybody's lips in 2025? Half the Answer can be heard on Spotify, on Apple, on YouTube, on Amazon, and elsewhere via its RSS feed. Resources:https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-of-the-year"6 7" song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07xpV4ix2K8https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/27/more-than-20-of-videos-shown-to-new-youtube-users-are-ai-slop-study-findshttps://www.economist.com/culture/2025/12/03/and-the-economists-word-of-the-year-for-2025-ishttps://www.dictionary.com/articles/word-of-the-year-2025https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/cambridge-dictionary-reveals-word-of-the-year-2025https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/collins-word-of-the-year-2025-ai-meets-authenticity-as-society-shifts/https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2147118/is-that-grocery-product-really-canadian-or-is-it-maple-washing"getting sendy" song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYAQEJyqR7Egroup 7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2025/10/27/tiktoks-group-7-meme-explained/https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/lorehttps://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/unchttps://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/choppedhttps://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/huzzhttps://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-the-performative-male-how-young-men-are-experimenting-with-masculinity-online-268742https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20563051221126040https://dailyillini.com/opinions-stories/columns-opinions/culture/2025/10/25/opinion-unmasking-performative-male/https://www.forbes.com/sites/kianbakhtiari/2025/09/28/performative-males-gen-z-irony-and-the-death-of-sincerity/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/us/rapture-tiktok-sept-23.htmlEpstein's email simulator https://www.jmail.world/https://othermeans.io/p/the-glonzo-strategyhttps://www.theverge.com/policy/798491/frog-portland-trump-national-guardhttps://the-monsters.fandom.com/wiki/The_Monstershttps://lafufu.art/blog/labubu-vs-lafufuhttps://www.thelist.com/1817157/what-is-mar-a-lago-face-who-has-tried-the-trend/https://bsky.app/profile/canadiandictionary.bsky.social/post/3m7tf3jm2fc2chttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/oprah-podcast-no-contact-adult-children-parents_n_69389e85e4b0fb6244b0daa8https://fortune.com/2025/12/29/trump-tariffs-cost-25000-per-month-small-business-importers-center-american-progress/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/us/politics/doge-musk-trump-analysis.htmlhttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-doge-government-spending-2025-b2890243.htmlhttps://www.vox.com/culture/376401/r-word-slur-return-euphemism-treadmill-cyclehttps://www.lawdork.com/p/the-kavanaugh-stop-50-days-laterhttps://www.cnn.com/2025/05/30/politics/trump-taco-angry-tariffhttps://www.buzzfeed.com/abbyzinman/canadians-elbows-up-explainerhttps://pen.org/banned-words-list/https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2025/03/15/these-197-terms-may-trigger-reviews-of-your-nih-nsf-grant-proposals/https://www.dailydot.com/memes/everythings-computer-trump-quote-meme/https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trump-promises-harsher-ice-crackdownshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/12/27/chatgpt-suicide-openai-raine/https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/snap-welfare-queen-ai-memes-1235460824/https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/10022/who-coined-the-phrase-rapid-unscheduled-disassembly#10219https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/rapid-unplanned-disassembly-rudhttps://becauselanguage.com/131-wotwoty-2025/

Source: The Guardian January 18, 2026 20:42 UTC