NEW YORK – Over the past few months, American actress Jennifer Lawrence, World Series fans, and right-wing influencers have all confessed to it. Now, the people behind the Oxford English Dictionary are joining in.

Oxford University Press has selected “rage bait” as its 2025 Word of the Year. The term is defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive.”

“Rage bait” first appeared at least as early as 2002 in a Usenet discussion post, where it described a particular kind of driver reaction to being flashed by another driver seeking to pass. Since then, it has become a common slang term for attention-seeking online behavior. Over the past year, usage of the term has tripled, according to Oxford’s data. The two-syllable compound word has a blunt, immediate impact and is easy to understand even for those hearing it for the first time.

Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, said that the Word of the Year is based on usage evidence drawn from a continually updated corpus of around 30 billion words, collected from news sources across the English-speaking world. The goal is to identify new or emerging words with social and cultural significance, supported by data. Each year, experts create a shortlist and invite the public to provide input.

In 2025, there was a new approach. The shortlisted words were personified as candidates and promoted through on-trend vertical videos by the creative studio Uncommon. The winner was chosen by Oxford’s committee, based on public votes (more than 30,000 people participated), conversation, and data analysis.

Grathwohl said the purpose of the Word of the Year is to encourage people to reflect on society and culture through the lens of language. Past winners have included “selfie” in 2013, “post-truth” in 2016, “toxic” in 2018, and “vax” in 2021.