Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2025 Is ‘Slop,’ the A.I.-Generated Junk That Fills Our Social Media Feeds
The word describes the onslaught of “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence”
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We saw it on our phones. We ate it in our bowls. This year, “slop” was everywhere. It was so ubiquitous that it’s been named Merriam-Webster’s word of the year.
Merriam-Webster, the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States, selected a word that describes the onslaught of artificial intelligence-generated content into every corner of the internet, from real estate listings to aspirational images on Pinterest to an adorable TikTok video of bunnies jumping on a trampoline.
“Slop” first appeared in the 1700s to describe soft mud. In the 1800s, it was used to refer to food waste. Its definition evolved to include “a product of little or no value,” per Merriam-Webster’s announcement. Today, the publisher defines the word as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”
The word sounds like what it means. “Like slime, sludge and muck, slop has the wet sound of something you don’t want to touch,” the publisher’s announcement says. “Slop oozes into everything.”
Quick fact: Merriam-Webster’s previous words of the year
The dictionary publisher selected “polarization” in 2024, “authentic” in 2023 and “gaslighting” in 2022.
“Slop” is just the latest word of the year that refers to the internet’s ugly side. Oxford University Press chose “rage bait,” which refers to online content designed to elicit anger in order to drive traffic, as its word of the year. Dictionary.com’s pick was “67,” a term popular among kids that drove the adults in their lives crazy, perhaps because it has no clear definition at all.
It’s not the first word of the year pick that refers to the proliferation of A.I., either. Collins Dictionary chose “vibe coding,” or coding that’s heavily reliant on A.I. assistance. Cambridge Dictionary’s chosen word, “parasocial,” can refer to the one-sided relationships fans develop with their favorite celebrities and influencers. But in September, the dictionary updated its definition to include the relationships people develop with A.I. chatbots.
Merriam-Webster isn’t even the first to choose “slop” as its word of the year. It was also selected by the Economist, whose editors were inspired by OpenAI’s recent release of Sora, a generative A.I. platform that can create prompt-based videos on demand. “Suddenly social-media feeds were filled with such clips,” the magazine writes. “A term that started circulating in the early years of generative A.I. is now everywhere: ‘slop.’”
“The words of the year aren’t just a fun peek into new slang and language changes, they also tell us quite a bit about the worries, trends and obsessions of the English-speaking world,” Gail Flanagan, a linguist at the University of Limerick, writes in the Conversation. “And this year’s list has one clear theme. In 2025, artificial intelligence played a huge role in our offices, social media feeds, music and film, and now—dictionaries.”
To select their word of the year, editors at Merriam-Webster comb through data about which words have appeared more in search results, Greg Barlow, the publisher’s president, tells the Associated Press’ Anna Furman. Then, they decide on a word that they believe best reflects the year.
Runners-up for this year’s word included “gerrymander,” “tariffs,” “performative” and “conclave.” The shortlist also included “touch grass,” an internet term that means, well, getting off the internet.
Often, the word “slop” has a tinge of mocking or resistance. The fact that people are searching for the term reflects an increased awareness of the fact that A.I.-generated content is flooding everyone’s feeds.
“They want things that are real. They want things that are genuine,” Barlow tells the AP. “It’s almost a defiant word when it comes to A.I. When it comes to replacing human creativity, sometimes A.I. actually doesn’t seem so intelligent.”
People may even be getting tired of “slop” offline. The term “slop bowl” has come to describe the mishmash of greens, proteins, vegetables, sauces and other ingredients served up by fast-casual chains, as the New York Times’ Emma Goldberg reported in May. But recently, as Bloomberg’s Redd Brown and Dina Katgara report, American consumers have been turning their backs on some of the biggest “slop bowl” chains, such as Sweetgreen, Chipotle and Cava.