Merriam-Webster names “slop” the word of the year 2025

Merriam-Webster, the US publisher of some of the world’s best-known encyclopedias, has named “slop” the word of the year for 2025.

“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,” Merriam-Webster writes, continuing:

“The flood of slop in 2025 included absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books, ‘workslop’ reports that waste coworkers’ time… and lots of talking cats. People found it annoying, and people ate it up.”

Merriam-Webster likens the word “slop” to terms like “slime”, “sludge” and “muck”, and says it conveys a wet, unpleasant sound. Something you’d rather not touch. Over the year, the word is considered to have set the tone for how the AI threat is discussed. Less apocalyptic and more mocking. An expression of a feeling that while AI wants to replace creativity, it’s not always very good at it.