2025 Word of the Year: Slop

Some other WOTY selections:

Oxford 'rage bait' https://corp.oup.com/news/the-oxford-word-of-the-year-2025-i...

Collins 'vibe coding' https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/collins-w...

Cambridge 'parasocial' https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2025/11/18/cambridge-di...

Dictionary.com '67' https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-year-2025/

This one is an apt pick. I only worry it’s early and the true wave of slop is not yet upon us.

I'd like to see an examination of how the phrase 'human slop' rose and fell in this year. Initially emerging as a counterpoint, it's now receded.

I was thinking "upended," but "slop" is also a fine choice.

I've noticed amoung colleagues who are not fond of ai usage they love to call out "slop". If a line of code is too verbose or too succinct it must be ai. If a routine doesn't use the function they created when it's something tangentially related it must be ai slop. It's like the new form of gatekeeping.