The Collins English Dictionary, published in the UK, has chosen “vibe coding” as its 2025 “Word of the Year.” The term was coined by Andrej Karpathy, an AI pioneer, and describes the process of creating applications using artificial intelligence.
“Vibe coding” refers to the use of artificial intelligence in programming using natural language, meaning “you simply tell a machine what you want to do instead of writing the code yourself.” According to Collins, the term is “the use of artificial intelligence guided by natural language to write computer code.”
Karpathy, a former director of artificial intelligence at Tesla and a founding engineer at OpenAI, coined the term to describe a new approach to programming that “makes it possible to completely forget about the code.”
Collins lexicographers compile a list of new and noteworthy words each year based on observations of the 24 billion-word Collins Corpus database.
“The selection of ‘vibe coding’ as the word of the year perfectly reflects how language has changed with technology,” said Alex Beecroft, the dictionary’s executive director, in a statement. “It’s a major shift in programming – AI is making coding more accessible and symbolizing the merging of human creativity and machine intelligence through natural language.”
This year’s list also includes other tech-related terms. For example, “clanker” is a British English derogatory term for “robot” or “AI device” and originated from the TV series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”
Other notable expressions include “broligarchy” (a small group of wealthy men with political influence), “Henry” (a high earner, not rich yet), “taskmasking” (creating an image of being productive at work), and “micro-retirement” (taking a short break from work to pursue personal interests).
At the same time, terms such as “biohacking” (altering the body’s natural processes for health and longevity), “coolcation” (relaxing in cool regions while escaping hot climates), “glaze” (overly praising someone) and “aura farming” (making a deliberate effort to create a charismatic image) are also among this year’s trending words.
Recall that Collins announced the word “brat” (a self-confident and independent-minded person) as the word of the year in 2024, and the term “AI” in 2023.
