"Rage bait" dubbed 2025 Word of the Year by Oxford University Press
Move over "parasocial", a new term is in town.
Recently we covered the news that revealed that the Cambridge Dictionary had selected "parasocial" as its Word of the Year for 2025. Now, we can add to this by covering what Oxford University Press regards as the Word of the Year, with this one being an excellent decision...
"Rage bait" has been dubbed the Word of the Year by the rival body, with the official description for the term being as such: "(n.) Online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media account."
You might be thinking, "isn't rage bait two words?" We have been as well, and Oxford University Press is getting ahead of this discourse by explaining that "the Oxford Word of the Year can be a singular word or expression, which our lexicographers think of as a single unit of meaning." It also goes on to add that "we're not rage baiting you by choosing two words—though that would be in keeping with the meaning of the term!"
For those wondering about what made up the shortlist for the award, the other selected terms were "aura farming" and "biohack", and you can read more about these phrases over here.
