Slang of the Year 2026: The Youth Words That Won, and Our Own Pick
The 2026 youth-language picks so far (maxxing, Ragebait), the children's pick due in January, and our own Slang of the Year 2026, chosen from our dictionary's data.
As of 2 November 2026 the confirmed youth-language picks for 2026 are maxxing (Dictionary.com, 25 October) and Ragebait (Germany's Jugendwort, 10 October). The children's slang pick from Oxford and the LSSU Banished Words List come in January 2027. Our own Slang of the Year 2026 is Italian brainrot, the biggest single source of new words in our dictionary this year.
Last checked: 2 November 2026. This page collects the 2026 picks that come from children's and teenagers' language, and adds our own Slang of the Year, chosen from the data in our slang dictionary. For every dictionary's Word of the Year, including the picks that are not slang, see the Word of the Year 2026 tracker.
The confirmed 2026 youth-language picks
| Pick | Word | Announced | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dictionary.com Word of the Year | maxxing | 25 October 2026 | Dictionary.com |
| Jugendwort des Jahres (Germany) | Ragebait | 10 October 2026 | Langenscheidt |
| Oxford Children's slang word of the year | Not yet announced | Expected late January 2027 | |
| LSSU Banished Words List | Not yet published | Expected 1 January 2027 |
Maxxing is a suffix, not a word on its own in most uses: you "maxx" something by pursuing it to the limit. Dictionary.com says it means "pursuing an activity to the fullest" and traces it to looksmaxxing, which is why our entry rates it "careful": the original communities can be unhealthy, even though most of today's uses, such as cozymaxxing, are harmless. Dictionary.com's shortlist also included the slang word unc.
Ragebait won Germany's youth vote, run by the publisher Langenscheidt, ahead of Crashout and Peak. All three are English words used by German teenagers.
Last year's picks, for comparison
- Dictionary.com 2025: 67, announced on 28 October 2025.
- Oxford Children's Word of the Year 2025: children chose peace as their word and six-seven as their slang word, ahead of aura and delulu (Oxford University Press, 21 January 2026).
- LSSU Banished Words List 2026: 6-7 topped the list of words people want gone, followed by demure and cooked (Lake Superior State University, 1 January 2026).
So in twelve months 6-7 went from Word of the Year to the most banished word, and children still voted for it.
Our pick: Slang of the Year 2026 is "Italian brainrot"
Italian brainrot is the genre of AI-generated nonsense characters with fake Italian names, such as Tung Tung Tung Sahur, Ballerina Cappuccina, Brr Brr Patapim and Chimpanzini Bananini.
How we chose it. Every entry in our dictionary records the years its use peaked. We looked at the entries whose peak began in 2025 and is still running in 2026: the newest slang that lasted. As of 2 November 2026 there are more than 20 of them, and the biggest single group is Italian brainrot: the genre itself plus eight of its characters. No other source, game, song or meme contributes more than two.
We also required the pick to be rated "Safe" in our dictionary, meaning not rude or offensive, so a child can say it. That ruled out several strong rivals:
| Candidate (peak 2025 to 2026) | Why it is not our pick |
|---|---|
| 6-7 and 41 | 6-7 was already 2025's Word of the Year; 41 is a nonsense call-out like it |
| Aura farming | Close second, but one term rather than a family of words |
| Crash out | Rated "watch" in our dictionary: usually a joke about losing control, occasionally literal |
| Chopped | An insult about someone's looks |
| Clanker | Rated "careful": some 2025 skits around the word were criticised as racist-coded |
| Chud | Rated "not safe": an insult |
Italian brainrot also says something about 2026: it is a slang family made with AI image and voice tools, and our entry calls it "genuinely incomprehensible to adults, which is most of the appeal".
What the dictionary's own records show
- Our dictionary has recorded the date each new term was added since October 2026. Entries added in October and November 2026 include text abbreviations such as icl, wsg and iykyk, and new coinages such as lowkenuinely, gurt and cozymaxxing.
- The slang changelog tracks which terms entered, peaked and faded each year.
- To check whether any of these is fine for a child to use, try Is this slang safe?.
Sources
- Dictionary.com: Word of the Year 2026 (25 October 2026); Word of the Year 2025 (28 October 2025).
- Langenscheidt: Jugendwort des Jahres; ZDFheute, Jugendwort des Jahres 2026: Ragebait.
- Oxford University Press (21 January 2026). Peace named Oxford Children's Word of the Year for 2025.
- Lake Superior State University (1 January 2026). 50th annual Banished Words List.
- AlphaBetaMinds slang dictionary: peak years and safety ratings for each entry, as of 2 November 2026.