Year’s end brings the annual nominations for the “word of the year,” choices often based upon an uneasy blend of web-search statistics and social commentary.  This year’s selections focus on technology and artificial intelligence, with a dash of social isolation and a nod to the youthful slang meme “6-7.” 

Oxford University Press chose “rage bait,” an attention-seeking behavior that it defines as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive.” The purpose is not to drive public discourse or inspire action, but to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media account. 

The Cambridge Dictionary’s selection, “parasocial,” is defined as the illusory feeling of connection a person may develop with a celebrity, influencer, fictional television or movie character or even an AI-generated entity, characterized by the fact that the relationship is decidedly “one-way.” 

Collins English Dictionary’s choice is “vibe-coding,” a chatbot-based approach to the creation of software, which uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to allow the developer to describe the desired task or project in plain English and leave the actual design and engineering to AI.  Per Wikipedia, “a key part of the definition of vibe coding is that the user accepts AI-generated code without fully understanding it.”  

Runners-up in the 2025 field included “aura farming,” “broligarchy” and “Gen Z stare.”

Of course, no one asked me, but if they did, I would propose a rather different slate of candidates for the word of the year, including word pairs that reflect the geopolitical collision of energy, economics and ideology that are likely to have a profound effect on our lives in the near future. 

First on the list would be “degenerative” and “regenerative,” a pairing that describes two opposing economic models. The degenerative economy, which has been standard for most of the world’s history, is relentlessly focused on economic growth for its own sake. It’s pretty much a one-way street, a linear process often described as “Take, Make, Use and Waste.”  The degenerative economy is extractive and exploitative, both in the extraction of minerals and resources from nature in ways that damage natural systems, and in the way it depletes and weakens human communities and social systems through division and scarcity. 

By contrast, the regenerative economy is focused on long-term prosperity and social well-being, based upon an expanded definition of wealth that includes a healthy ecosystem (“natural capital”) and social and community relationships (“social capital”). The word often used to describe this kind of economy is “circular,” which denotes not only the reduction of waste through the wise use and reuse of materials, but the dynamic flow of money and accurate information throughout the community. 

Another word pairing might be seen as representing those two opposing economic models in action.  It’s “petrostates” and “electrostates.”   Petrostates are countries the economies of which are heavily dependent on the extraction and sale of oil and gas, and where in addition economic and political power is concentrated in the hands of an elite class with little or no political accountability. They tend toward authoritarianism through the absence or weakening of robust democratic institutions. Petrostates can be economically unstable despite their oil wealth, due to fluctuation and manipulation in fossil fuel markets and the lack of incentive to develop more diverse and stable economies.  

“Electrostate” is a newer coinage that is used to describe countries that are transitioning to electricity (“consumer electrostates”) as well as those that are competing for the global market as manufacturers and exporters of renewable energy technologies. At present, China is claiming the mantle in both contexts—as the leading exporter of green technology and the world leader in domestic solar capacity. With the conclusion of COP30, the U.N.’s 2025 climate change conference in Brazil last month, many energy analysts are speculating about an emerging and unsettling geopolitical realignment. It looks a lot like a new cold war, in which the United States allies itself with petrostates Russia and Saudi Arabia in opposition to climate action and the transition to renewable energy, and works to assert and preserve the dominance of the fossil fuel economy. 

Meanwhile, emerging electrostates like China and the nations of the European Union are joined by South American, African and island nations determined to expand the transition and realize the economic and environmental benefits. 

Norway, a petrostate but one with a strong democratic foundation, has provided a vision for a third pathway, using its oil wealth to create a sovereign fund to finance its transition to low-carbon development and electrification using renewables.  At COP 30, Brazil indicated it will adopt a similar strategy. 

“Epiphany” is the word I have already chosen as my favorite for the year to come. We usually think of the Epiphany in its religious context, signifying the arrival of the Magi in the Christian account of the Nativity. In its broader sense, an epiphany is an awakening, a sudden deep insight, a piercing understanding of the true nature of things, where disparate elements fall into place as a coherent whole. That meaning is often associated with intuition, but as many wiser heads have noted, intuition is really just a shortcut to the sum total of our experiences, knowledge and beliefs—a cosmic connecting of the dots.