Merriam-Webster Announced ‘Slop’ as Word of the Year

Merriam-Webster has revealed ‘Slop‘ is its pick for ‘Word of the Year 2025‘. The word has transcended far beyond its original meaning and has become a reference for the churn of generative AI content seen online.

“Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen slop as the 2025 Word of the Year,” Merriam-Webster editors wrote. ” We define slop as ‘digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” All that stuff dumped on our screens, captured in just four letters: the English language came through again.”

Slop began to gain traction as early as 2023. KnowYourMeme references the term as a description of “content that previously would have been described as ‘second monitor content.” However, over the past couple of years, it’s largely been used to describe AI-generated content requiring little to no effort in creating. The term has also become widely adopted within the gaming industry, with “friendslop” games like Peak and REPO gaining a lot of traction throughout 2025.

On top of crowning “slop” the Word of the Year of 2025, Merriam-Webster has listed other top words for the dictionary. This includes “Gerrymander” as political parties have used redistricting to increase electoral advantages. “Touch Grass,” a reference to the need for going outside for human interaction, has also been deemed a word (or phrase in this case) for the year. “Tariff,” “Six Seven,” and “Lake Char­gog­ga­gogg­man­chaug­ga­gogg­chau­bu­na­gun­ga­maugg” are also on Merriam-Webster’s list.

Since 2003, Merriam-Webster has chosen a word each year that reflects the current culture and moment in time. In 2024, the word “polarization” was chosen. It just so happened that this word was picked right after the U.S. presidential election.