From parasocial to vibe coding: The ‘Words of the Year’ for 2025
Here is a roundup of all the Words of the Year for this year.
Every year brings a new vocabulary of its own, but 2025 has felt like an era where language evolved in real time — shaped by technology, internet culture, and shifting human behaviour. This year’s ‘Words of the Year’ from major dictionaries reveal a world negotiating its relationship with AI, celebrities, and itself.
Parasocial
The Cambridge Dictionary declared 'parasocial' as its Word of the Year, noting that lookups and public conversation about one-sided emotional bonds surged across news and social platforms. The word ‘Parasocial’ captures a distinctly modern kind of connection: when you feel close to someone you’ve never actually met. The term was coined in 1956 by sociologists Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl to describe the pseudo-relationships television viewers developed with on-screen personalities.
That surge began with a spike in interest earlier this year, when popular YouTuber IShowSpeed publicly blocked a fan who had described themselves as his “number one parasocial,” an incident that reignited debate about fan boundaries and online intimacy.
High-profile moments like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s 2025 engagement show how millions emotionally invest in celebrity milestones from afar online and in news cycles. The trend now stretches beyond celebrities to AI chatbots and virtual influencers, complicating how people form trust and seek care online.
6 7 (six seven)
6-7 or ‘six-seven’ became Dictionary.com's word of the year. The word has become a staple in Gen Alpha slang, turning up in Reels, memes, and classrooms across the country.
Dictionary.com explained that the trend traces back to a song titled “Doot Doot (6 7)” by artist Skrilla. From there, it snowballed. A string of viral videos featuring basketball players and a kid now nicknamed the “67 Kid” helped push it into mainstream slang. No one actually agrees on what “67” means. Dictionary.com described it as “so-so” or “maybe this, maybe that.” But the platform admitted the term’s power lies in its vagueness. The word connects a generation that speaks in irony, humour, and digital shorthand.
Vibe coding
Collins Dictionary selected ‘vibe coding’ as its Word of the Year for 2025, marking a turning point in how people build software and interact with technology. The word refers to creating apps or websites by conversing with artificial intelligence instead of manually writing lines of code. The term was first introduced by OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy in February when he encouraged developers to “forget the code even exists” and instead “give in to the vibes.” What started as an experimental concept quickly turned into a mainstream trend, spreading across developer communities and tech companies worldwide.
