Slop Is Merriam-Webster’s 2025 Word Of The Year

The word gained popularity mainly online and describes content that is creepy, weird, and obviously fake.

“Slop” has been selected as Merriam-Webster’s word of the year.

The word gained popularity mainly online and describes content that is creepy, weird, and obviously fake. It’s rapid growth in use is in part due to the widespread availability of generative artificial intelligence.

“It’s such an illustrative word.” Merriam-Webster’s president said. Greg Barlow added, “It’s part of a transformative technology, AI, and it’s something that people have found fascinating, annoying and a little bit ridiculous.”

“Slop” was first used in the 1700s to mean soft mud, but it evolved more generally to mean something of little value.