Dictionary.com just wrapped up 2026 pop culture with a bow: The site has officially chosen “maxxing” as its Word of the Year.
“Maxxing really stood out this year because not only was it everywhere, in all types of articles, but it crossed a lot of different domains,” Steve Johnson, director of lexicography for Dictionary.com’s Dictionary Media Group, told CBS News. “That’s not something that we often get with a lot of slang terms.”
In the official Word of the Year announcement on Monday, Dictionary.com defines maxxing as “the practice of pursuing an activity to the fullest or optimizing a certain aspect of your life.” The announcement credits looksmaxxing — the manosphere term for optimizing one’s appearance — with popularizing the general maxxing philosophy. Dictionary traces looksmaxxing back to 2015 Reddit threads. Since then, the term has become widely associated with harmful habits and controversial internet figures like Clavicular, whose looksmaxxing practice went viral when he claimed he hammered the bones on his face to restructure them, and used meth to lose weight.
However, looksmaxxing’s suffix has been co-opted for an increasingly diverse range of interests. If you embrace the lifestyle of an Italian grandma, you’re nonnamaxxing. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator is frictionmaxxing. Men are even skipping showers before dates in the name of pheromone-maxxing (Playboy does not endorse this).
How can a platform as reputable as the literal dictionary choose such a chronically online Word of the Year? It’s actually kind of their thing. Dictionary.com selected none other than “67” as the 2025 Word of the Year. In 2024, they went with “demure” in response to a TikTok trend sparked by creator Jools LeBron. Johnson told CBS that these decisions aren’t ragebait, as he keeps a list of “words to watch” every year. It includes some words from previous years, which he monitors for growing usage. Dictionary.com’s lexicographers determine how often these words show up in places like the news and social media, simultaneously factoring in qualitative data around each word’s cultural significance.
“We not only look at the data behind the word usage, but we also are really looking to see what’s capturing something distinctive that describes the year,” Johnson added.
Social media users have mixed feelings about “maxxing” as the Word of the Year. “I understand why, but I still hate this for us as a society lol,” user @adachooka commented on an Instagram post from Dictionary.com. “We are living in the worst timeline,” wrote user @salma.ulven.
It’s fair to guess that these concerns stem from the red-pilled origins of “maxxing,” as a concept embraced by men who wield misogyny like a badge of honor. Under an X post from Complex breaking the news, user @JohnAnthonyLife expressed similar concerns and replied: “looksmaxxing going mainstream is actually the problem, not a flex. optimizing your jaw won’t fix shit texting or avoidant approach anxiety.”
At its core, maxxing proposes an all-or-nothing approach to life. It’s the present-day answer to 2011’s YOLO, and like any belief system, it has the potential to inspire joy and toxicity in equal measure. And no matter your opinion, it will continue to inspire memes.
