On Sunday, Oxford University Press announced that its word of the year for 2025 is «rage bait.»
On Sunday, Oxford University Press announced that its word of the year for 2025 is «rage bait.»
According to an online post by the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary, the use of the word, which is a portmanteau of «rage» and «bait,» has tripled in the past year.
According to Oxford University Press, this «suggests that more people than ever are aware of the negative consequences of online life, alongside all the positive ones.»
The Oxford English Dictionary itself defines this noun as online content «deliberately designed to provoke anger or outrage»: being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, such content is usually specifically published with the aim of increasing traffic.
According to Axios, the term rage bait competed in a public vote with two other expressions that were selected by Oxford University Press — aura farming and biohack.
The Oxford English Dictionary explains the expression «building an aura» as «cultivating an impressive, attractive, or charismatic persona or public image.»
The word «biohack» is defined as «an attempt to improve or optimize one’s physical or mental fitness through means such as drugs, supplements, or technological devices.
As dev.ua previously wrote, Collins Dictionary named Vibe coding the word of the year .
