Merriam-Webster's word of the year is 'Slop,' summing up 12 months that have been especially soggy with AI-generated content in only four letters
In a move likely unsurprising to regular readers of this fine publication, Merriam-Webster's word of the year is 'Slop' (via The Associated Press). In a blog post, the dictionary and reference book company stresses the fact this word was in fact chosen by its "human editors."
Merriam-Webster defines 'slop' in the context of 2025 as "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence." Wow, say how you really feel, tomes. The blog post goes on to reflect on how inescapable this tidal wave of brain rotting content has been online, quipping, "People found it annoying, and people ate it up."
Naturally, such a blog post wouldn't be complete without a brief etymology lesson. Continuing with the not-so-subtle digs at AI-generated content, Merriam-Webster goes on to explain, "The original sense of the word, in the 1700s, was 'soft mud.' In the 1800s it came to mean 'food waste' (as in 'pig slop'), and then more generally, 'rubbish or 'a product of little or no value.'"
Alongside Slop's dubious headlining honour, the terms 'gerry mander,' 'touch grass', 'performative', 'tariff', 'six seven', and 'conclave' also get a moment to shine. All of these terms were standouts in the online dictionary's lookup data for 2025, though I've skipped one intriguing inclusion as it really deserves its own line break. Are you ready for this?
'Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg' is derived from the Nipmuc people's name for Webster Lake, which flows across south central Massachusetts' border with Connecticut. But why did it enjoy such a spike in dictionary lookups this year in particular? In a word, Roblox; this name can be encountered in Roblox game Spelling Bee, throwing out a 58-character challenge to anyone braving 'Master Mode' (or as Merriam-Webster notes, 'Charg Mode' "for real connoisseurs"). Unfortunately, that's about as much positivity about Roblox as I can personally manage this year, so I'm gonna move on.
Back to slop, then! Between AI-generated content now apparently outnumbering human-written articles on the internet, to TikTok being inundated with AI-generated videos thanks to the advent of OpenAI's Sora and similar video-generation tools, Merriam-Webster is right to say "Slop oozes into everything."
While I personally think AI-generated content either reads poorly or simply looks ugly, some would insist I'm in the minority; former director of business at Square Enix, Jacob Navok claims, "consumers generally do not care" and that "Gen Z loves AI slop".
Does that mean we're going to see more games like Codex Mortis, a roguelite claiming the dubious honour of being 'the world's first fully playable game created 100% through AI'? I wouldn't be surprised to see a few more AI-fuelled imitators—but considering we also have the very much human-made Vampire Survivors, I doubt any of these slop games will have real staying power…wait, Poncle is developing a deckbuilding spin-off? That sounds like a 2026 release all but hand-crafted for me specifically—how am I only hearing about this now!?