Like most tools, generative AI models can be abused. And when the abuse gets so bad that a major dictionary notes it, you know it has become a cultural phenomenon.
On Sunday, Merriam-Webster announced that “slop” is the 2025 Word of the Year, reflecting how the term has become shorthand for the flood of low-quality AI-generated content that has spread through social media, search results and the Internet in general. The dictionary defines slop as “low-quality digital content typically produced in large quantities using artificial intelligence.”
“It's such an illustrative word,” Merriam-Webster President Greg Barlow told the Associated Press. “It's part of a transformative technology, AI, and it's something that people find fascinating, annoying and a bit ridiculous.”
To select the Word of the Year, Merriam-Webster editors review data on which words increased in search volume and usage, then reach consensus on which term best represents the year. Barlow told the AP that the spike in searches for “slop” reflects the growing awareness among users that they are encountering fake or bad content online.
Dictionaries have been tracking AI's impact on language in recent years, with Cambridge choosing 'hallucinate' as its 2023 word of the year due to the tendency of AI models to generate plausible but false information (longtime Ars readers will be happy to know there's another word for that in the dictionary too).
The trend extends to online culture in general, which is ripe for new coins. This year, Oxford University Press chose “rage bait,” referring to content designed to provoke anger for engagement. Cambridge Dictionary selected 'parasocial' to describe one-sided relationships between fans and celebrities or influencers.
The difference between baby and bath water
As the AP notes, the word “slop” originally entered English in the 18th century and meant soft mud. By the nineteenth century it had evolved to describe food waste fed to pigs, eventually meaning waste or products of little value. The new AI-related definition builds on that history of describing something unwanted and unpleasant.
