Use of the term has tripled over the past year, Oxford data shows

Oxford University Press has named "rage bait" -- defined as "online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive" -- as its 2025 Word of the Year.

According to a report by The New York Times, the term beat out two other finalists, "biohack" and "aura farming". While it has recently surged online, "rage bait" dates back to at least 2002, when it appeared in a Usenet discussion group to describe drivers reacting aggressively on the road. Its modern meaning has grown in step with attention-seeking behaviour on social media. Oxford's data shows that use of the word has tripled over the past year.

"Even if people have never heard it before, they instantly know what it means," said Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages. "And they want to talk about it."

Oxford's Word of the Year, selected annually since 2004, is based on linguistic evidence from its 30-billion-word corpus drawn from global English-language media. The aim, Grathwohl said, is to choose emerging words that reflect cultural and social realities. More than 30,000 people took part in this year's public vote, before Oxford's committee made the final decision.

Past winners have included "selfie", "post-truth", "toxic", "vax", "rizz" and "brain rot". Grathwohl said the 2025 finalists capture how the year has been shaped by questions of identity and the emotional power of the internet.

"People feel so passionately, there's no way to avoid rage-baiting a portion of the word-loving public," he said. "No matter what we choose, a bunch of people are going to flame out online."