Last year’s word of the year, brain rot, captured the mental drain of mindless scrolling on Instagram or TikTok.
Mr Grathwohl said both 2024 and 2025’s winners have a similar theme.
“Together, they form a powerful cycle where outrage sparks engagement, algorithms amplify it, and constant exposure leaves us mentally exhausted,” he said.
Previous Oxford words of the year have included selfie, goblin mode and rizz.
Cambridge Dictionary has declared parasocial its word of 2025, which it defined as a relationship felt by someone between themselves and a famous person they do not know.
Its examples include the interest displayed by fans when pop star Taylor Swift and American footballer Travis Kelce announced their engagement.
Meanwhile, Collins Dictionary went for vibe coding, which is the art of making an app or website by describing it to artificial intelligence rather than by writing programming code manually.