Word of the Year announced by Cambridge Dictionary
Cambridge Dictionary has named “parasocial” as the Word of the Year 2025, noting its growing relevance amid rising public preoccupation with artificial intelligence and celebrity culture, Qazinform News Agency correspondent reports.
According to the dictionary, the term means “involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series, etc., or an artificial intelligence.”
Interest in parasocial has grown due to online debates about influencers and one-way emotional attachments. Further spikes were driven by media coverage of Meta, OpenAI, and concerns about the effects of chatbots on minors. By September, Cambridge Dictionary updated its definition to explicitly include relationships involving artificial intelligence.
“As social media intensifies the intimacy that fans feel with their adored celebrities, and with the rise in popularity of AI companions that can take on personalities, the word for these one-way relationships - parasocial - is having its own moment,” the dictionary wrote.
Public discussion around parasocial dynamics grew alongside the rollout of personalized AI companions. Debates intensified during the summer. In July, XAI introduced a subscription Grok model featuring companions, which was criticized for encouraging unhealthy attachments. In August, 44 US attorneys general urged 13 AI developers to strengthen safeguards for minors. Global media attention surrounding Taylor Swift’s engagement also contributed to search surges, as fans widely referenced the term in discussions about their reactions.
“Parasocial stood out in 2025 for several reasons. Public interest in the term increased massively this year, as we can see from our data: the number of searches for it in the Cambridge Dictionary as well as on Google spiked on several occasions. It’s interesting from a language point of view because it has made the transition from an academic term to one used by ordinary people in their social media posts. And it also captures the zeitgeist of 2025, as the public’s fascination with celebrities and their lifestyles continues to reach new heights,” Colin McIntosh, Cambridge Dictionary Chief Editor, said.
Only two other words made the 2025 shortlist - pseudonymization, meaning the replacement of personal identifiers with meaningless data, and memeify, meaning to turn an event, image, or person into an internet meme.
Last year, Qazinform News Agency reported that Cambridge Dictionary named “manifest” as its Word of the Year for 2024.
