Oxford chooses "rage" as word of the year 2025

On December 1, Oxford University Press announced "rage bait" as the word of the year 2025.

The main reason for this choice is that the word, a combination of "rage" and "bait," has "tripled in usage" over the past year, "showing that more people are aware of the negative effects the internet can have alongside the positive ones," according to an online post by the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Rage bait is a portmanteau of the words rage, meaning a violent outburst of anger, and bait, an attractive bait. Both terms have been widely used in English and have origins dating back to Middle English. While closely related to the word clickbait, rage bait focuses more specifically on stirring up anger, discord, and polarization.

For context, the Oxford Dictionary defines the noun as describing online content "that is deliberately designed to arouse anger or outrage by being offensive, provocative, or offensive, typically posted to increase traffic or engagement with a particular website or social media account."

Interestingly, "Rage bait" won the public vote over two other words that Oxford University Press nominated: "aura farming" and "biohack."

The Oxford Dictionary defines the noun "aura farming" as "the cultivation of an impressive, attractive, or appealing public image by behaving or presenting oneself in a subtle way that conveys confidence, composure, or mystery."

The verb "biohack" is defined as "an attempt to improve or optimize a person's physical or mental performance, health, longevity, or well-being by changing diet, exercise habits, or lifestyle, or by using other means such as drugs, dietary supplements, or technological devices."

The voting took place over two days with more than 30,000 participants.

With news and opinion dominated by social unrest, debates about online content and health concerns in 2025, Oxford experts have argued that “rage bait” shows we need a profound change in how we interact with online content.

This year has grown to signal a deeper shift in how we talk about attention — both how it's given and how it's sought — interactions and ethics online.

Is "Rage bait" a compound word?

The Oxford “Word of the Year” may be a single word or phrase, which lexicographers consider to be a single unit of meaning.

The emergence of “rage bait” as a standalone term highlights the flexibility of the English language, where two words already widely used can be combined to give a more specific meaning in a particular context (in this case, online) and brought together to create a term that fits the world we live in today.

In 2024, Oxford chose "brain rot" as its Word of the Year. The phrase originated in the 19th century but has become extremely popular in recent years.

This phrase describes mental or intellectual decline caused by consuming too much trivial, incoherent online content, such as social media videos .

Oxford chose the word to reflect existential concerns about the consequences of excessive social media use and its prevalence in popular culture in 2024.

And the Word of the Year 2025 also seems to be related to last year's choice, suggesting an even more serious consequence than the "brain rot" of 2024, when inflammatory words cause more dire consequences./.

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