image copyrightGetty Images
The Collins English Dictionary named "mogging" its word of the year. Modern English-speaking youth use this word in a joking manner to describe how someone (or something) outshines, surpasses a competitor, or pushes him into the background.
“Mogging” is a fast-growing slang word among Gen Z and Gen Alpha. It came into widespread use both online and in everyday speech in 2026, with researchers estimating that the frequency of its use increased by 210%.
According to Collins managing director Alex Beecroft, the publisher's lexicographers look at the "frequency of words" and also "analyze usage patterns" that reveal the latest linguistic trends.
Choosing “mogging” as word of the year “shows how each generation leaves its mark on the language,” he says: “It’s a great example of how Gen Z and Gen Alpha have taken a word and turned it into humorous slang, making the language their own and mogging everyone else!”
image copyrightCollins
Mogging should not be confused with mugging (robbing) or mugging someone off (making fun of someone). In its current understanding, the term means to outshine or dominate someone, most often in terms of appearance, and the reader (especially a young one) in the last year has probably become a victim of mogging himself or, conversely, mogged his desk neighbor or girlfriend in the yard.
Older researchers often associate the word's origins with the acronym AMOG, meaning Alpha Male of the Group. In the mid-2010s, it was associated with bodybuilding forums, as well as the notorious “manosphere” and incels.
But now the glib word is used much more widely - as a playful humiliation or a compliment, depending on the context.
It is also used in the communities of “luxmaxers” - another creation of young linguists, denoting all sorts of methods and, in a broad sense, the culture of bringing one’s appearance to the ideal (in the form in which it is trending on social networks this particular week).
End of Most Popular
End of Subscribe to our social networks and newsletter
This extension will help if you have difficulties accessing the BBC Russian Service website.
Download extension
End of story Chrome browser extension - link
Collins, one of the largest dictionary publishers in the UK, uses a variety of sources, including social media, to reflect how the English language is developing in the country year on year.
The word of 2025 is “vibe coding” - a method of creating an application or website using artificial intelligence, when a person with natural intelligence formulates a task in ordinary language to an AI agent, who then translates it into a programming language, without burdening the author of the brilliant idea.
Other Newspeak items included in the dictionary's top ten finalists this year include ghost jobs, a term familiar to frustrated job seekers: when an employer advertises a job without actually intending to hire anyone.
Another phrase, Hydration break, of course, became famous not without the help of the World Cup this year, and P(doom), untranslatable without the use of unparliamentary vocabulary, is an assessment of the likelihood of the collapse of civilization, villainously orchestrated by artificial intelligence.
“Manchesterism” has also found its way into the list of buzzwords: this term comes, as you might guess, from the city of the same name, whose former mayor recently became Prime Minister of the whole of Great Britain. It means devolution of powers to the regions, presumably entailing not only economic growth but also social progress. But the local meme, of course, could not resist mogging.
Download the new BBC World Service app!
When you first open the app, select "BBC News Russian Service" and receive notifications about important news, analysis, videos and podcasts.
Important: The new app is not available in the UK and US.
Find out more
Video playlist
End Video playlist
