Do you know your skibidi from your delulu? Both are among the new words to be added to the Cambridge Dictionary.
One of the world’s largest glossaries of words has grown by another 6,000 terms and phrases in the past 12 months, reflecting new trends and topics, from climate change to familial relationships.
So what’s new in the ultimate lexical library this year? Prepare to indulge in a word salad.
1. What the skibidi are you talking about?
Perhaps the most bizarre addition to the Cambridge Dictionary is skibidi.
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And if that sounds like a nonsense word, that’s because it’s gibberish.
Like most gibberish, skibidi doesn’t actually have any direct meaning.
In fact it’s defined in the dictionary as ‘a word that can have different meanings such as ‘cool’ or ‘bad’, or can be used with no real meaning as a joke’.
What the skibidi am I talking about, you ask? Put simply, it’s a phrase you can use instead of the bog standard expression ‘what on earth’.
The term was actually coined by the creator of a viral animated YouTube video series called ‘skibidi toilet’.
It has since been picked up by several celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, who shared a post on Instagram in October showing a necklace her daughter had given her as a birthday present, engraved with ‘skibidi toilet’.
2. It’s all delulu
English has many marvellous ways of saying nonsense, and 2025 lingo has just brought another.
Delulu is a contraction of ‘delusional’ meaning, according to the dictionary ‘believing things that are not real or true, usually because you choose to’.
Colin Mcintosh, the lexical programme manager at Cambridge Dictionary, explained lexicographers only add words they believe will stand the test of time and will continue to be used in decades to come.
‘It’s not every day you get to see words like ‘skibidi’ and ‘delulu’ make their way into the Cambridge Dictionary,” he explained.
‘We only add words where we think they’ll have staying power.’
3. What’s the word for a ‘stay-at-home mum’?
No, not a housewife, but a tradwife – a married woman with children who stays at home cooking and cleaning.
It sounds rather like a hark back to sometime around 1955, the days of the BBC radio’s Housewives Choice – in other words not the first phrase that comes to mind in 2025.
But fast forward 70 years and a tradwife is a stay-at-home spouse with one major difference from her slightly outdated counterpart.
According to Cambridge Dictionary, a tradwife likes to show off her day-to-day activities online, especially by posting on social media.
3. The word for a group of tech bros
With the return of Donald Trump to the White House earlier this year, 2025 has so far shaped up to be the year of tech titans.
And yes, there’s a word for that – it’s called a broligarchy.
A portmanteau of ‘bro’ and ‘oligarchy’, it refers to a small group of men in the technology business who wield a large amount of power and wealth and ‘who have or want political influence’.
Sound familiar? Well the term was used to refer to the likes of, you’ve guessed it, X owner and Tesla founder Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, when they all attended Trump’s inauguration in January.
4. Working hard from home… or hardly working
Another word in the new habits category is that gadget used by homeworkers to keep up the pretence they’re busy hitting deadlines when they’re actually kicking back and relaxing.
Tell me you haven’t reached for the ‘mouse-jiggler’ once in a while.
A classic product of the post-pandemic world of remote working, mouse jigglers can be both hardware and software designed to keep the mouse icon moving across the screen and prevent standby mode from kicking in.
5. Climate lingo
Last on our list of highlights is a term introduced thanks to the ongoing spotlight on climate change.
Forever chemicals, man-made substances in living organisms and in the environment that accumulate over time and can’t break down naturally.
Sometimes known as PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) have been used in manufacturing since the 1950s and have found themselves in nearly everything – from carpets and skin products to jet engines and electronics.
But the term only found its way into the Cambridge dictionary this year.
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