Merriam‑Webster has added 1,400 new words to its online dictionary, many drawn from social media, meme culture and contemporary life. New entries include looksmaxxing, parasocial and rickroll, along with cultural phrases such as cuffing season and Sunday scaries. The publisher also highlighted that 2025's Word Of The Year, "slop," now includes a modern sense referring to low‑quality AI‑generated content. The site sees roughly 40 million unique users each month.
Merriam‑Webster Adds 1,400 New Entries — Social Media, Meme Culture and Pop Terms Join the Dictionary
Merriam‑Webster.com has expanded its online dictionary with 1,400 new words and definitions, reflecting how everyday language evolves—especially through social media, online communities and popular culture. The publisher said the additions represent words and senses that have demonstrated widespread usage over time and offer “a window into the world today.”
New Entries from Social Media and Meme Culture
Many of the additions come directly from internet culture. Notable examples include:
- Looksmaxxing: The practice of taking one or more, sometimes extreme or risky, measures intended to increase one’s physical attractiveness.
- Parasocial: Relating to or involving a one-sided emotional connection with someone (especially a celebrity or fictional character) whom one does not know personally.
- Rickroll: To trick someone into hearing the song "Never Gonna Give You Up" by English singer Rick Astley.
- Meme coin: A cryptocurrency that gains attention and value largely through social media, jokes or viral memes.
- Promposal: An elaborate or theatrical invitation to prom, often shared on social media.
- Letterboxing (digital sense): A modern, location-based hobby that adapts the 19th-century pastime to digital platforms.
Broader Cultural Additions
Beyond memes, the update captures phrases and phenomena that describe modern feelings and seasonal behaviors:
- Cuffing Season: A period, typically during colder months, when people who are single seek short-term romantic partners to spend the winter with.
- Yacht Rock: A smooth, melodic style of soft rock that originated in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
- Crashout: A: a mental or emotional breakdown; B: an emotional outburst or tantrum.
- Sunday Scaries: Feelings of anxiety or sadness on Sunday that come from knowing the weekend is nearly over.
- Copium: Avoidance, denial, or minimization of a bad situation, imagined metaphorically as an addictive narcotic.
- Mandela Effect: The phenomenon in which many people share the same false memory. The term was coined by researcher Fiona Broome after she and others falsely remembered Nelson Mandela dying in prison, though he did not.
Word Of The Year And Usage Trends
Merriam‑Webster named "slop" its 2025 Word Of The Year. Originally used in the 1700s to mean soft mud, "slop" later came to mean something of little value and has recently taken on an additional sense: "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence."
Audience And Reach
The Merriam‑Webster website attracts a large audience, reporting roughly 40 million unique monthly users and about 100 million monthly page views—underscoring how many people consult the dictionary to track and understand changing language.
"The new entries reflect words and meanings that have demonstrated widespread use over time," Merriam‑Webster said, noting that the additions help document how culture and technology influence language.
These 1,400 additions give readers a clearer picture of how the internet, pop culture and shifting social habits are shaping English vocabulary in real time.
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