Merriam-Webster names 'slop' 2025 Word of the Year for low-quality AI content

Merriam-Webster has named "slop" its 2025 Word of the Year, saying the term has become shorthand for the flood of low-quality AI-generated content on social media, in search results, and across the web. The dictionary defines slop as "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence." Merriam-Webster President Greg Barlow told The Associated Press, "It’s such an illustrative word." He added, "It’s part of a transformative technology, AI, and it’s something that people have found fascinating, annoying, and a little bit ridiculous." To select its Word of the Year, Merriam-Webster’s editors review data on which words rose in search volume and usage, then reach consensus.

Barlow told the AP that the spike in searches for "slop" reflects growing awareness among users that they are encountering fake or shoddy content online. Dictionaries have been tracking AI’s impact on language for the past few years: Cambridge selected "hallucinate" as its 2023 Word of the Year, Oxford University Press chose "rage bait" this year, and Cambridge Dictionary selected "parasocial" to describe one-sided relationships between fans and celebrities or influencers.

As the AP points out, "slop" originally entered English in the 1700s to mean soft mud. By the 1800s it described food waste fed to pigs and eventually came to mean rubbish or products of little value.

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Culture, Merriam-webster, Slop, Artificial Intelligence, Greg Barlow, Hallucinate