The Case for 'Vibe Coding' as the Word of the Year
Given that this blog is quite focused on the language aspect of AI, it's only natural that we comment on what was named "Word of the Year" by Collins Dictionary: "vibe coding," a term that may sound like a teenager's description of something, but it's real! With the immense hype surrounding the viral "6-7" being named word of the year by most social media platforms, Collins Dictionary's choice of "vibe coding" is a welcome difference, given that it is at least actual words rather than numbers.
Coined by the co-founder of OpenAI, Andrej Karpathy, in a post on X last February, vibe coding refers to how programmers or even the average person with no coding experience can ignore the rules of having to code and, as he says, "give in to the vibes" by leveraging AI to assist with writing or curating code as is needed for specific tasks. Human intervention is required only when a bug arises or when, for some reason, the code is not delivering the expected results.
The choice to name vibe coding as word of the year stems from a reflection on the mood, perceptions and language choices used throughout 2025. Providing AI with a simple, plain-language description can produce code usable for building basic apps. Still, troubleshooting is sometimes required, and more complex, professional platforms sometimes require an experienced coding professional. Alex Beecroft, managing director of Collins, commented on how the choice of word of the year "captures how language is evolving alongside technology."
In addition to the vibe coding, other tech-related word of the year mentions included "clanker" and "broligarchy" in the AI and tech space, with "aura farming" also coming up as a considerable mention. Other terms in the shortlist included "biohacking," "micro-retirement" and "taskmasking." "Rage bait" was named word of the year by Oxford Dictionary, given the substantial increase in social media and web usage.
With tech, AI and related topics being a central focus in most conversations lately, it seems these terms are set to become more frequent and more common in daily speech. The dictionary we once knew may change significantly with an influx of terminology and concepts that are vastly different from what we're used to hearing. A corpus to suit the times feels necessary in the era we have now entered, which is dynamic, ever-changing and incredibly unpredictable.
Posted by Ammaarah Mohamed on 01/16/2026