Collins Dictionary's yearly infographic showcases the year's top trending terms, and in 2023, AI is its word of the year.
"An explosion of debate, scrutiny, and prediction [is] more than enough justification for Collins’ 2023 Word of the Year: AI," Collins says.
In addition to AI, Collins shortlisted several other words. They include bazball, deinfluencing, nepo baby, ultra-processed, and canon event. Yes, your spell checker will underline all of those words if you type them out. They are real words, though.
Most of the words on the list had some sort of cultural significance this year. For example, influencers use their platform to promote products or lifestyles. Deinfluencing is the act of using one's platform to warn followers away from products or lifestyles. One of the words, greedflation, describes using inflation as an excuse to unnecessarily raise prices to increase corporate profits.
Meanwhile, many blogs across the internet started compiling nepo baby lists. Nepo baby, where nepo is short for nepotism, describes a person whose career is believed to have been advanced by having famous parents. Collins lists Gwyneth Paltrow as an example of a nepo baby, though she's not a fan of the term.
Collins also detailed how health experts have been warning against ultra-processed foods in 2023. ULEZ, short for ultra-low emission zone, popped up in the UK, where Londoners have to drive vehicles that adhere to emissions standards or pay a fine.
Perhaps the oddest choice this year is semaglutide. It's a drug, commonly known as Ozempic, that lowers blood sugar and suppresses the appetite to help folks with both problems. It became FDA-approved in 2021 and has made quite a name for itself ever since.
Still, none of the words had the impact that AI enjoyed in 2023. It also joins Collins Dictionary's 2021 word of the year, NFT, as being the second initialism to make the list. Prior words of the year from Collins Dictionary include permacrisis in 2022 and lockdown in 2020.
