Cambridge Dictionary names its word of the year for 2025
Cambridge Dictionary has announced its word of the year for 2025: ‘parasocial’.
‘Parasocial’ is defined as the bond a person feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know.
Psychologists have observed that the rise of one-sided parasocial relationships is redefining admiration and celebrity.
For example, when pop star Taylor Swift and American football player Travis Kelce announced their engagement earlier this year, many fans felt a strong connection with them, even though most of them had never met them.
Parasocial relationships that people form with online influencers and AI chatbots are also highlighted as part of the growing trend.
Colin McIntosh of Cambridge Dictionary said: “Parasocial captures the spirit of 2025. It’s a great example of how language is changing.”
“What was once a specialist academic term has become mainstream. Millions of people are engaged in parasocial relationships; many more are interested in their rise.
“The data reflects this, with the Cambridge Dictionary website showing spikes in searches for the word ‘parasocial’.
“Language about parasocial phenomena is evolving rapidly as technology, society, and culture change and mutate. From celebrities to chatbots, parasocial trends are fascinating for those interested in the evolution of language.”
The term parasocial dates back to 1956, when two sociologists at the University of Chicago observed that television viewers formed parasocial relationships with on-screen personalities that were similar to the relationships they had with “real” family and friends.
They noted how the rapidly expanding television medium has brought actors’ faces directly into viewers’ homes, making them fixtures in people’s lives.
Simone Schnall, professor of experimental social psychology at the University of Cambridge, said parasocial was an “inspiring choice” for word of the year.
“The rise of parasocial relationships, along with fandom, celebrity, and artificial intelligence, has redefined the way ordinary people interact online,” he said.
“We have entered an era where many people form unhealthy and intense parasocial relationships with influencers. This leads to people feeling like they ‘know’ the people they have a parasocial bond with, that they can trust them, and even extreme forms of loyalty. But this is completely one-sided.”
“As trust in mainstream and traditional media erodes, people are turning to individual personalities as authorities and treating them more like close friends, family, or cult leaders, developing parasocial bonds as they spend hours consuming their content.
“When an influencer has that many followers, people assume they are trustworthy.”
He continued: “There is a more traditional and healthy manifestation of fandom, as people develop parasocial bonds with stars like Taylor Swift who are extremely good at what they do, but this can also lead to obsessive interpretation of song lyrics and intense online debates about their meaning and what they mean to fans as well as Swift herself.
“Parasocial tendencies are taking on a new dimension, with many people approaching AI tools like ChatGPT as ‘friends’, offering positive affirmations or as surrogates for therapy.
“It’s an illusion of relationship and groupthink, and we know young people can be susceptible to that.”
Nearly 6,000 new words were added to the Cambridge Dictionary this year, including “delulu”, a play on the psychedelic word, “skibidi”, which is meaningless, and “tradwife”, which is short for traditional wife.
Other words noted to have made an impact this year include “distortion,” which refers to very low-quality content on the internet, specifically generated by artificial intelligence.
Another is “memeify,” which means turning an event, image, or person into a meme (an idea, joke, image, or video that spreads quickly on the Internet).
