LONDON, December 1. /TASS/. The Oxford English Dictionary has identified the noun rage bait as the word of 2025, Oxford University Press announced.
"In a perfect summary of 2025’s chaos - and following a public vote and analysis from our language experts - rage bait has been crowned Word of the Year," the publisher said in a post on Instagram (banned in Russia, owned by Meta, recognized as extremist in the country).
The dictionary defines rage bait as online content created specifically to provoke anger or outrage through provocative or offensive elements, typically published to increase traffic or engagement on a particular webpage or social media platform.
The publisher attributed the word’s prominence to the increasingly conscious use of the internet, which has fueled the spread of provocative material designed to draw attention. "Offline, this phenomenon now also plays a big role in shaping conversations about politics, identity, and misinformation," the publisher stressed.
Oxford University Press selected the word of the year based on an online vote on its website. Three words made the shortlist: in addition to "rage bait," there were the noun "aura farming," defined as creating an attractive image, and the verb "biohack," meaning efforts to improve the body’s performance by changing diet or lifestyle or using technical devices.
In 2024, the Oxford Dictionary named "brain rot" the word of the year. The publisher noted that the first use of "brain rot" was recorded in 1854 in the book Walden; or, Life in the Woods by US writer Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). In 2024, the term gained rapid popularity on social media and became part of the permanent vocabulary of bloggers and journalists.