{"id":11616,"date":"2025-12-04T10:21:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T10:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/oxford-dictionary-names-rage-bait-2025-word-of-the-year\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T10:21:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T10:21:14","slug":"oxford-dictionary-names-rage-bait-2025-word-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/oxford-dictionary-names-rage-bait-2025-word-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford Dictionary names &#8216;rage bait&#8217; 2025 Word of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>In a move that could trigger fits of fury among readers, Oxford University Press &mdash; publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary &mdash; has picked &ldquo;rage bait&rdquo; as its 2025 Word of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>The term, which has been used extensively online in recent months, is a noun used to describe internet content that is &ldquo;deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage&rdquo; to drive up engagement and clicks.<\/p>\n<p>Oxford University Press said the two words frequently appear with a hyphen connecting them, in the form of a compound phrase, and therefore qualify as a &ldquo;word&rdquo; for the purpose of its annual listing.<\/p>\n<p>Rage bait, which has tripled in usage during the past 12 months, was chosen ahead of other strong contenders, including &ldquo;aura farming&rdquo;, which is a noun used to describe the online &ldquo;cultivation of an impressive, attractive, or charismatic persona or public image&rdquo;, and &ldquo;biohack&rdquo;, which is a verb used to describe attempts to modify diet in a bid to improve physical or mental performance.<\/p>\n<p>All three words on the shortlist are from the online world, as was last year&rsquo;s winner, &ldquo;brain rot&rdquo;, which refers to mental degradation associated with endless scrolling, and 2023&rsquo;s &ldquo;rizz&rdquo;, which is derived from &ldquo;charisma&rdquo; and describes someone&rsquo;s online ability to charm or seduce others.<\/p>\n<p>Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, which compiles Oxford English Dictionary, said &ldquo;the fact that the word rage bait exists and has seen such a dramatic surge in usage means we&rsquo;re increasingly aware of the manipulation tactics we can be drawn into online&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/12-weeks-jail-for-school-it-support-technician-who-took-upskirt-videos-of-teachers\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">&lt;div&gt;12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers&lt;\/div&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>Rage bait was chosen ahead of the other two shortlisted contenders with the help of an online vote.<\/p>\n<p>Grathwohl said this year&rsquo;s word summarizes a subtle change that has been taking place in the online world in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Before, the internet was focused on grabbing our attention by sparking curiosity in exchange for clicks,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But now, we&rsquo;ve seen a dramatic shift to it hijacking and influencing our emotions, and how we respond.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>He said the word seems to be part of &ldquo;the natural progression in an ongoing conversation about what it means to be human in a tech-driven world &ndash; and the extremes of online culture&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>Oxford University Press&rsquo;s lexicographers said they picked their shortlisted words after analyzing the use of new and emerging words, especially those of &ldquo;cultural significance&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>Other dictionary publishers have also unveiled their words of the year recently. Collins selected &ldquo;vibe coding&rdquo;, which refers to an emerging software development process that turns speech into code. Cambridge Dictionary picked &ldquo;parasocial&rdquo;, which refers to the bond people sometimes feel with celebrities they do not know. And Macquarie Dictionary chose &ldquo;AI slop&rdquo;, another word from the online world, this time used to describe low-quality content created by generative artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/migrant-acquitted-in-first-trial-over-us-border-military-zones\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">Migrant acquitted in first trial over US border military zones<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>earle@mail.chinadailyuk.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><sub><\/sub><\/p>\n<div>Oxford Dictionary names &lsquo;rage bait&rsquo; 2025 Word of the Year<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a move that could trigger fits of fury among readers, Oxford University Press &mdash; publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary &mdash; has picked &ldquo;rage bait&rdquo; as its 2025 Word of the Year. The term, which has been used extensively online in recent months, is a noun used to describe internet content that is &ldquo;deliberately&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/oxford-dictionary-names-rage-bait-2025-word-of-the-year\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Oxford Dictionary names &#8216;rage bait&#8217; 2025 Word of the Year&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11617,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}