'Rage bait' wins Oxford's word of 2025

In this photo illustration, 'Oxford Word of the Year 2025' is displayed on a mobile phone screen next to the word 'rage bait' in Ankara, Turkiye on December 1, 2025. [AFP]

"Rage bait", the slang term describing online content designed to elicit anger and drive internet traffic, has been crowned 2025 word of the year, Oxford University Press (OUP) announced Monday.

It said the word -- chosen through a combination of public voting, sentiment and analysis of OUP's "lexical data" -- had "captured our emotions" this year.

Casper Grathwohl, president of OUP's languages division, said the growing use of such words "reveal how digital platforms are reshaping our thinking and behaviour".

"It feels like the natural progression in an ongoing conversation about what it means to be human in a tech-driven world -- and the extremes of online culture," he added in a statement.

Oxford defines "rage bait" as "online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted" in order to increase web traffic or engagement.

It beat out fellow shortlisted contenders "aura farming" and "biohack".

The former was described as "the cultivation of an impressive, attractive, or charismatic persona or public image by behaving or presenting oneself in a way intended subtly to convey an air of confidence, coolness, or mystique".

Meanwhile biohacking is an attempt "to improve or optimise one's physical or mental performance, health, longevity, or wellbeing by altering one's diet, exercise routine, or lifestyle, or by using other means such as drugs, supplements, or technological devices".

More than 30,000 people worldwide voted over three days for their preferred winner, according to OUP.

Its final choice was also supported by evidence of "real language usage", after its experts tracked the use of the shortlisted words throughout the year via "a 30-billion-word corpus of global language data".

It is the fourth consecutive year that the public have played a part in picking Oxford's word of the year, after an inaugural public vote in 2022 saw "goblin mode" prevail.

In that instance, the public were given the chance to choose the overall winner, opting for the term describing "unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly or greedy" behaviour.

In subsequent years, voting has played only a part in the choices, which have included 2023's "rizz" -- a colloquial term defined as "style, charm, or attractiveness" -- and last year's "brain rot".

Previous words of the year chosen solely by Oxford lexicographers include "vax" (2021), "climate emergency" (2019) and "selfie" (2013).