Oxford Word Of The Year 2025 Finalists. Oxford university press (oup) has released the shortlist for its annual ‘word of the year’ contest and is asking the public to vote to determine the winner. Discover more about the winner, our shortlist, and 20 years of words that reflect the world.

Oxford’s word of the year is based on usage evidence drawn from its continually updated corpus of some 26 billion words, which is drawn from news sources across the. Supported by evidence of real language usage,.