Collins Dictionary announces "vibe coding" as word of the year

The Collins English Dictionary has named "vibe coding" as its word of the year for 2025.

The term was selected from a shortlist of ten words reflecting the social and cultural trends of the past year.

"Much of the Collins’ Word of the Year shortlist reflects this further shift towards a tech-dominated world," said Collins Dictionary in today's announcement.

"The runners-up on this year’s list also reveal a society grappling with authenticity in an increasingly performative world."

"Vibe coding" refers to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create an app or website rather than writing the code manually.

The term was coined in February by Andrej Karpathy, OpenAI co-founder and former AI leader at Tesla, who define it as "a new kind of coding" in which AI allows programmers to "fully give in to the vibes" and "forget that the code even exists"

There's a new kind of coding I call "vibe coding", where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists. It's possible because the LLMs (e.g. Cursor Composer w Sonnet) are getting too good. Also I just talk to Composer with SuperWhisper…

— Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) February 2, 2025

Collins described "vibe coding" as "a term that captures something fundamental about our evolving relationship with technology."

"While tech experts debate whether it’s revolutionary or reckless, the term has resonated far beyond Silicon Valley, speaking to a broader cultural shift towards AI-assisted everything in everyday life."

The shortlist was comprised of many other internet-related slang terms, with some reflecting resistance to technology's rising influence.

"Broligarchy," a combination of "bro" and "oligarchy," refers to a small group of rich and powerful men in the technology industry who seek political influence.

It has frequently been used to describe tech billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, who attended U.S. President Donald Trump's inauguration.

Collins said the term "captures a growing unease about concentrated power in the hands of a few men who operate at the intersection of technology, wealth, and politics."

More explicitly anti-tech was the word "clanker." Originating from the Star Wars franchise in the mid-2000s, it is a derogatory term for robots and sources of AI.

"Embraced by a generation watching AI take entry-level jobs and creative opportunities, it’s both a joke and a coping mechanism," said Collins of the word "clanker."

"Clanker" has been frequently used by Gen Z on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram in the past year.

It was far from the only internet viral word on the shortlist: "Glazing" (defined as "to praise or flatter excessively, often undeservedly") and "aura farming" (defined as "the deliberate cultivation of a distinctive and charismatic persona") also originated from TikTok.

There were also several shortlisted words relating to trends in work culture in 2025.

"HENRY" (an abbreviation for "high earner, not rich yet") describes people who, despite earning a high income, are unable to accrue substained wealth due to external financial demands.

Similarly reflecting fiscal difficulties, "micro-retirements" refers to a break taken between periods of employment to pursue personal interests "rather than waiting decades for a retirement that might never happen," Collins said.

Another shortlisted word referring to a break was "coolcation," a holiday taken to somewhere with a cool climate rather than a tropical or warm one.

Collins attributed the popularity of "coolcation" to the effects of global warming, writing "heatwaves are making traditional summer destinations unbearable" and "climate change is quite literally cooling off our holiday plans."

Other shortlisted terms include "taskmasking" (the act of giving a false impression that one is being productive in the workplace) and "biohacking" (the activity of attempting to alter the natural processes of one's body in order to improve health).

"In 2025, it’s more apparent than ever that people contain multitudes, and this year’s Word of the Year list encapsulates what it means to be human in the age of AI," Collins said.

The Collins English Dictionary has announced a word of the year every year since 2013, selected by its teams in Glasgow and London.

Collins lexicographers monitor the Collins Corpus, a 24 billion-word database drawing from various media sources (including news, television, books and social media), to create the shortlist of new and notable words from each year.

The word of the year 2024 was "brat," popularised by UK pop star Charli XCX's hit album of the same name.

"AI" was selected in 2023 following the launch and proliferation of ChatGPT by OpenAI.